


Sleep On The Floor

by spookysiege



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Everyone Is Alive, Everyone's parents are the worst, Jeff's a pretty good brother, M/M, Running Away, Walt Whitman is mentioned so many times he's basically a character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-04-03
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 24,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookysiege/pseuds/spookysiege
Summary: "It- it’s your choice Neil and I, I, I understand if you’ll say no but your father’s gonna come back here looking for you himself if you don’t go to him soon.  And I don’t want you to go to him, Neil, I don’t- you can’t-” Todd squeezed desperately at the other boy’s arm in his hands and tried to collect his thoughts enough for them to pour in some semblance of order from his shaking lips.  It could very easily be the most he’d said at once since his poem in Keating’s.  As difficult as that had seemed at the time, it had nothing on this.“Just please- please don’t give up.  Not now.”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first fanfiction of mine that's ever made it out of my folders, so feedback is happily welcomed. Seriously, comment what you think I’d love to read it! This is loosely based off of the Lumineers video for their song Sleep on the Floor.
> 
> If I owned the rights, the movie would have ended a lot differently.

“What if we just… just left?”

Neil cocked his head at Todd like he had so many times before, only this time resigned hopelessness mingled with the vague confusion apparent in his brown eyes. 

The look was incredibly off putting to Todd. Less than half an hour ago those eyes had been all but bursting with pure elation as the theater applauded his breathtaking performance. He’d never seen Neil light up as he had in that moment: a green beacon across a sea of people that Todd would willingly reach for forever. Now that he’d gotten the privilege, he was loathe for anything to sweep through and snuff the vibrant spirit that secretly set his own heart aflame.

“We could go, you know,” he tried again. He barely let himself think about what he was truly saying for fear that he would back down. He couldn’t, he _wouldn’t_ lose his nerve, not tonight. They didn’t have time for his stuttering or doubts or cold feet because he had to try to save Neil.

Todd had overheard when his friend’s father asked the official-looking theater woman for his son to be sent to him. Before the shock even set in that the man was there, he had weaved as quickly as he could to the actor’s side. The momentary panic he’d felt was consuming; he may have never been one to follow things like “gut feelings” or believe in “intuition”, but that didn’t stop him from ripping Neil as fast as he humanly could away from his cast and into the shadowy curtains. The teasing catcalls that had followed them would have made him flush brilliant red any other time, but the only thing on his mind then was the protective fear rapidly welling up inside of him.

As he shared what he’d seen, Todd watched the younger boy’s post-play exuberance slide off of him like rain on an umbrella. He could even pinpoint the exact second that both of their hearts shattered when Neil whispered brokenly, “Well that’s that, then.”

In present time, the brunette scoffed a bitter laugh and glared, dismayed, at his socked feet.

“My father can find me at Welton, Todd. He always finds me… he always finds out.”

He could sense that Neil was on the verge of screaming or crying or some other violent outpour of emotion: it seemed ready to surge from him, but they didn’t have time, they didn’t have time, _they didn’t have time_. The shorter boy placed a hand around his forearm urgently and willed him to look up.

“I didn’t- I didn’t mean Welton.”

“Well wherever you’re thinking: he’ll find me, Todd, I know it. Hiding from him for a night won’t change the fact that I actively disobeyed him. It would only make things so much worse.”

His roommate and friend flitted his eyes around the darkened niche they’d found among discarded props and bulky costumes. Tears threatened at the edges of both of their vision. Neil still looked so fit for the stage, like Shakespeare’s tragically beautiful hero - some Hamlet or Othello or Romeo - but their fates were not meant for him. It couldn’t be. 

Todd took a deep breath and rushed without letting himself think:

“Then we leave and we don’t come back.”

This time, when Neil’s tilted head jerked to Todd, there was only startled confusion in his face. The blond understood the hesitation and the bewilderment he could see churning through Neil’s mind; he felt in himself, shoved somewhere deep down. But if he were ever to grasp for something he wanted, to let his secret, sacred dreams have a chance at turning into reality, and to make his life extraordinary, this was the moment.

“It- it’s your choice Neil and I, I, I understand if you’ll say no but your father’s gonna come back here looking for you himself if you don’t go to him soon. And I don’t want you to go to him, Neil, I don’t- you can’t-” Todd squeezed desperately at the other boy’s arm in his hands and tried to collect his thoughts enough for them to pour in some semblance of order from his shaking lips. It could very easily be the most he’d said at once since his poem in Keating’s. As difficult as that had seemed at the time, it had nothing on _this_.

“Just please- please don’t give up. Not now.”

The dark headed boy continued to meet his begging gaze as he quickly came to realize what was being offered. He opened his mouth and fluttered it soundlessly for a moment, as if trying to determine what to say. Todd could feel time tangibly ticking by and longed for Neil to make a decision -more specifically, to decide to say yes.

_Please, please say yes._

Finally, gently, “You’d run away… for me?” Before Todd could even nod in response it was immediately followed by, “But where would we go? What would we do?”

Todd didn’t have any answers. All he could do was hold back a hysterical laugh threatening to bubble over and reply recklessly, 

“Come with me and we’ll see.” 

Another silent second, heart beats racing in tandem. He took a minuscule step forward to slide his stumbling hands from Neil’s lower arm to fist at his shoulders. He could feel the tremors wracking both of their bodies.

“Neil. I’m serious.”

A low, quiet groan dragged out of his friend’s downcast lips. He began to shake his head absentmindedly while he ran a hand through his messy fringe. Thinking it meant that Neil had made up his mind against it - and now how idiotic did he feel for suggesting such a wild thing in the first place - Todd released his grip and made to take a step back. Who did he think he was? Something more than a foolish boy who’d happened to be placed as Welton’s resident golden boy’s roommate?

However, Neil stopped the movement out of his space by curling his long fingers into Todd’s coat with a sharp, “Wait!”

Hope tentatively flared back up in his chest.

“Okay, damnit. Okay. I guess we’ll run away.” 

The hand on his coat moved to engulf one of his and the shorter boy didn’t know whether to blush and beam at him - how long had he dreamed of holding those treasured fingers between his? - or scream about his own rashness in this situation. Yet he did neither; instead doing his best to push both of those thoughts away and keep up when Neil tugged him forwards with a simple,

“Come on, we can get out this way”.


	2. Chapter 2

It didn’t take them long to realize that they had nearly nothing with them. While Neil had managed to grab his bag on their way out of the back doors, all it held was a change of clothes (his Welton coat, a pair of khakis, a warm green sweater, and a pair of trainers that he shoved on), a bathroom kit (one toothbrush, a razor, shaving cream, and toothpaste), and a few crumpled bills stuffed haphazardly at the bottom.

Unfortunately, going back to Welton that night was out of the question. By the time Mr. Perry realized his son’s absence, that would clearly be the first place he would check. The pair nearly gave up then as they lurked a few buildings away and attempted to hastily formulate a plan.

“How much money is there?” Todd asked again for the third time in five minutes.

“I’ve got ten dollars. Oh God, Todd, what are we doing? We could make it, what, 30 miles in a cab? And then where would we stay? My father will kill me, he really might.” 

Neil was on the verge of hyperventilating, bending over to put his hands on his knees as he struggled to take deep breaths. Todd would find the typical role reversal ironic if he wasn’t trying desperately to win what felt already like a losing battle.

He placed a hand lightly on the slumped boy’s back and mumbled nonsense as soothingly as he could while he tried to think of a solution.

Perhaps they could send some sort of message to their friends and have them bring their things to the cave in the morning? Spending the night at the Poets’ hideout surely wouldn’t be that bad - it was better than sleeping on the streets, and worth it for the small wad of cash sitting in his sock drawer. However, Todd knew logically that police would be called in to search the surrounding woods once the boys couldn’t be found inside the school. It wouldn’t be long after that that Neil would be delivered to his father, even more enraged than before - not that his own parents would let him off easily, either. No, they couldn’t go back to the school.

Or maybe they could use half of the money on a cab, however far that would take them, and then spend the rest on a cheap hotel for the night? Only, that would leave them penniless and still too close to home come morning. An inconvenient grumble from his stomach reminded him that they would have to eat sometime, too.

A dejected chuckle rumbled through the back under his palm and he looked down to see Neil laughing pitifully with his head in his hands.

“If only your parents really had gotten you that car for your birthday.”

With the words, Todd suddenly came to an imperfect but perfectly sufficient plan. His thrilled relief nearly made him spin the genius beside him around and plant a firm kiss on his mouth, but he caught himself when the other boy’s eyes were level with his. Instead, he declared quietly,

“I, I got it, Neil. I figured it out, I know what to do.”

Todd spared one more moment to meet the beautiful boy’s eyes. He tried to convey that Neil could still turn back, that he had one last chance to change his mind. The older boy couldn’t seem to work the words from his head to his mouth, whether from his bizarre assertiveness wearing off or from fear that Neil might conclude this whole endeavor wasn’t worth it after all, he didn’t know.

The whole world felt as if it was quaking under his feet (or maybe that was just him). Everything was so uncertain; the two could run back to the theater house, receive their crippling punishments, and risk the chance of expulsion - or worse. Todd couldn’t shake the feeling that that option would end with him never seeing Neil again. Their other choice, however, could easily end with them in a ditch within a week, and that was _if_ they didn’t get caught first.

Despite this, Todd knew what he picked. He only had to make sure that Neil felt the same.

“What are we waiting for, then?” the brunette rasped faintly with perhaps not really a smile, but certainly not a frown. Todd ghosted a similar expression back to him and led the way towards where they might find a taxi.

With the play ending so recently, it was easier than Todd feared it could be. The most difficult part was flagging one down, jumping into it, and slamming the door behind them before anyone might see the two boys whisking off into the night. Todd gave the driver his parents address, knowing the cash they had should be able to just cover the fee.

Neil didn’t ask where they were going; Todd wondered if it was because of simple faith in him or the fact that the whiplash of emotions from the evening was beginning to take its toll. Either way, his roommate - were they still roommates if they didn’t have a room? - leaned his head against his shoulder and drifted on the cusp of slumber.

The older boy didn’t know what to do with his arms for a minute until he finally settled one around Neil’s shoulders. His exhausted friend shifted closer in his half-sleeping state. 

Todd felt a pang of worry. He had known all his life there were things that were off about him, things that made him “odd”. While there was certainly enough else to fill a book, meeting Neil for the first time was what put a name to the large, question mark shaped piece that haunted the Why-Was-Todd-So-Different puzzle of his life.

Todd was a homosexual.

Initially, this realization choked him with dreadful panic. With everything else about him that prevented him from fitting in, surely it wasn’t fair to carry invertedness too. He kept himself - as much as he could, that is, in a tiny shared bedroom - from Neil and the other boys those first couple of weeks. His stutter grew to the point of pain until he could hardly speak two words in under a minute. Surviving Welton seemed utterly impossible.

Then Neil came to his table in their study period and begged him to come to the Dead Poets Society meeting that the boys were planning. Not even his older brother, Jeff, would fight for him to be included - especially when he said no - like the brunette boy did that day. Todd couldn’t begin to understand why this well-liked, vivid person would work so hard to get him of all people into their life. All he knew was that when the other students snuck out to “suck the marrow from life”, Todd was with them.

Of course, when his roommate read the opening poem in his strong and earnest voice, Todd knew beyond a shadow of doubt that he would follow him anywhere, do anything for him. No, it may not have been love at first sight, but it was certainly love at first outpouring of passionate recitations; love at the vision of Neil growing larger than life, permeating the cave around them like the fumes from Charlie’s smokes; a love that crumbled the glass around his heart like it was nothing but a balloon to be popped.

The blond rested his head against the window as the bumbling car carried them to the future they’d carve out for themselves. He had no idea what was to come, or what they’d do, or where they’d go, or how the Hell he was supposed to hide the fact that he was hopelessly in love with the boy curled up against him when they were _running away together_ , but he had a plan to get them out and he was going to execute it.

But, he thought with a crazed hint of a smile, if the way Neil’s heavy breaths were puffing against his neck had anything to say, maybe the other boy wouldn’t mind.

.

They reached Todd’s parents’ house in a little under an hour. The elegant estate was shrouded in darkness, only hazy outlines and fresh snow visible in the reflected moonlight. He’d always felt that the sprawling layout was ostentatious and ridiculous for just 4 people living inside, especially with both sons usually off at their respective boarding schools. He supposed his family’s wealth would do him a favor that night though, so he shouldn’t complain.

He gently shook Neil awake and ushered him out of the car and onto the snowy sidewalk. After passing the driver the crumpled ten, he hopped out as well. 

“Where are we?” Neil murmured sleepily, his voice seeming to echo across the white property in the silence of the night.

“This is my house, I guess,” he answered barely above a whispered. The information snapped Neil to attention and he spun towards Todd incredulously.

“Your house? But your parents… Todd, what are we doing here?”

Todd quirked the corner of his mouth up, hoping his nervousness wasn’t as apparent externally as he felt it inside. He nodded his head towards the detached garage to the side of the sweeping horseshoe driveway. Brown eyes followed his gaze, but turned back to him without understanding.

The shorter boy shrugged and gestured for Neil to come along. He then trudged along the path, unconcerned about the footprints they were leaving behind in the dusting of snow on the pavement. If all went well, the boys would be long gone by the time anyone was awake to see their tracks.

At the door to the stone building Todd bent over and retrieved the key from underneath a small angel statue at his feet. Another thing he’d never understood about his parents was why they would leave a key to their shiny new vehicles in such an obvious place, but he supposed that was the thing about them: they subconsciously felt so far above the masses that it was hard to imagine that they weren’t untouchable.

But Todd, well, Todd had a lifetime of being put down at worst and overlooked at best, and being told that it didn’t matter that he was practically mute as he’d never contribute as much as his goliath older brother, that when he reached his breaking point, he knew exactly where to press - especially if it would help the boy he loved.

It wasn’t significantly warmer in the garage than it had been outside, but at least it gave them a reprieve from the wind. Todd warmed his hands with his breath as he looked over the cars in the dark room. As his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, he spotted just what he’d hoped to see: Jeff’s Chevy parked at the end.

He had received a letter from his mother earlier that week about Jeff’s return home for winter break from his university. While he knew that his older brother was planning to go home that night, he didn’t know if the winter weather would push his trip back a few days. Luckily for them, it hadn’t.

Todd grabbed a flashlight on the shelving near the door - he was afraid to turn on the overhead lights and perhaps alert any landscaping staff that was still on the property - and led the shivering boy next to him around to the shiny black car of interest.

“Woah,” Neil muttered when he recognized the model.

The blond couldn’t help but snort in response. “Yeah, Jeff always was the favorite.” He bent over to look through the windows, rubbing his coat sleeve over the glass when his breath made them too fogged over to see through. Trying the door, he found it unlocked. Typical.

“This is your brother’s?” The tall boy asked incredulously, a hand coming up to brush against the hood. He whistled lowly. “I heard these things were, like, twenty-five hundred.”

“Well, my parents like to throw money at him. Maybe- heh, maybe it’s their way of saying thank you for making them look good to their friends.” He reached under the dashboard and pulled the lever to pop the trunk. The audible clunk sounded too loud in the still room, so he rushed to the back to check inside.

Gold mine - all of his older brother’s bags were still in the car and that would give them clothes. Todd could remember being young boys and their father getting onto them for always leaving their luggage in the car overnight when they’d come home for the summer. Jeff would haul him out with him the next morning to lug everything in, always muttering under his breath in that secret way that would make a younger Todd giggle.

He was thankful for once that as far as his family went, some things never change.

Looking back to Neil over his shoulder, he found his excitement welling. He’d never realized that truly living would feel quite this weightless.

“Um, you see the key hooks behind you? Would you grab the spare Chevy one?”

A dark head tilted at Todd as it always did when his friend was puzzled. The older boy turned fully to stare back in his own confusion.

“What?”

“Well, the car’s unlocked. What do we need the keys for?” Neil’s voice held no doubt or suspicion, merely genuine perplexity.

Todd breathed out half a dumbfounded laugh and shuffled his feet. The nerves were beginning to rear their ugly head again although he did his best to push them aside. He could be brave tonight. He _had_ to be brave.

“You, uh, you usually need keys to start a car, Neil.”

“Wait, you’re- wait… _what_?” Neil’s mouth gaped and he nearly dropped his bag. “We’re _taking the car_?”

“Neil shhh… pl-please, just- shh, just grab the keys.” Through the still open door of the garage, he saw a light flick on somewhere in the house. Neil caught it as well, his eyes growing like saucers.

“He’ll find me. I’m trapped, oh God, we should never have done this, I shouldn’t have auditioned at all-”

“Hey!” Todd interjected firmly. He of all people knew what an anxiety attack looked like; he’d certainly had his share of them. However, as much as he’d like to talk Neil down slowly and sweetly as the other boy had done for him once or twice, they ran a higher risk of getting caught every second that they wasted. “We’re gonna be fine, okay? Just fine. Come on, let’s just get your bag in the trunk alright?”

After the pair situated the back and closed the lid, he turned to the younger boy and queried more gently, “Can you get in the car?”

At his miniscule nod, Todd turned to the back wall to grab the keys himself. Truly, it was a miracle his parents hadn’t been robbed before. 

He had to manually open the garage door, knowing the electric switch would be far too loud in the middle of the night. The heavy metal door made him regret being forced to give up rowing when he transferred to Welton although he lifted it shortly without too much of a hassle. The sound was still uncomfortably noisy, though. He watched as another light clicked on, this time on the floor level. He wasted no more time as he rushed into the driver’s seat.

Neil was noticeably calmer inside the car, even flashing him an apprehensive but slightly teasing grin.

“You’re sure you know how to drive?”

“Why else would I have wanted a car for my birthday?” He mumbled in reply before starting the engine. The Bel Air purred under his feet as he quickly sped through all the various mechanisms he’d have to use in his head. 

It’d been a while since he’d driven, not since the summer when his father instructed Jeff to teach him, in fact, but he was fairly decent at it at the time. He remembered his brother pushing the top of the convertible down and yelling into the wind as Todd sped down the isolated roads near their estate. Driving was the closest he’d ever felt to flying - before he met Neil and got swept up in his whirlwind - and he couldn’t help but let out a bubbling laugh as he ripped from his parent’s property in his older brother’s car.

It wasn’t until several miles later when he finally let up on his speed and whispered, horrified yet delighted, “Oh my God. I, I stole my brother’s car.”

Neil’s shock of laughter beside him sounded _almost_ back to normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> $10 in 1959 is roughly equivalent to $85 today, and $2,500 is about $21,000. Which I'm assuming from Neil's "we're not a rich family like Charlie's" and the fact that his father won't even let him write for the school newspaper, he probably can't imagine being given such an expensive gift. Also, the car is a 1957 Chevy Bel Air - a true classic car.


	3. Chapter 3

Todd drove all night. He meant to pull over on the side of the road somewhere, try and catch a couple hours of sleep, but his mind was restlessly whirring and he couldn’t bring himself to come to a stop.

Neil had no trouble falling into a deep sleep against the window. His lanky knees curled up to his chest, one arm bracing his head against the glass, coat piled like a blanket around his body; Todd wished he could take a picture, but settled for smiling softly at his handsome, serene face instead. This adventure would be Hell, he already knew. Somehow he found it hard to mind.

Around six in the morning, the sleeping boy grunted and rubbed his eyes groggily with sluggish fists. Todd chuckled quietly at the sweet image it made and Neil looked to him in vague surprise.

“Mm… so it wasn’t a dream?” he mumbled around his tired tongue.

Todd shook his head while keeping his eyes on the tree-lined road ahead of them. The sunrise was beginning to spread picturesque streaks of orange and purple through the hints of the sky that they could see through the snowy forest.

Neil looked around out of the windows as he roused himself and casted a light smile to the colors in the sky. He yawned loudly, before asking,

“Where are we?”

“Not that far from Albany now,” Todd answered. He hoped that Neil wouldn’t ask where they were going, because he honestly didn’t know.

“Wow,” Neil replied, hushed. He seemed to understand that they didn’t have a destination planned and thankfully elected not to question it. “Did you get any sleep?”

“No, I uh- I just drove. Wasn’t tired.”

“Todd!”

When the blond risked a glance to the seat next to him, Neil’s face was torn between concern, reprimand, and humor. He flashed a sheepish quirk of his lips and hummed a little tune to - hopefully - distract his passenger.

Neil merely shook his head and yawned again. He unfolded his legs with a painful groan, doing his best to stretch his body in the relatively cramped space.

“Are we close to any civilization, or have you brought me out to slaughter? I need to stretch my legs.” The brunette paused, looking Todd over. “And you need a break and a change of clothes.”

The driver looked each direction on the deserted road and began to pull over. Like he’d said, Albany should’ve only been half an hour away, but to be fair Neil was right. He hadn’t even thought to change from his suit from the night before, but as he was made aware of it, it’s firm material tugged on his skin. (Also, he wouldn’t mind spending a little while in the remote glow of the sunrise with the radiant boy at his side.) Pulling the car to a stop on the side of the road, he jested drily, “Well, I guess that spoils my secret murder plot of the day.”

Neil’s responding giggle warmed him in a way he probably shouldn’t admit to. “Et tu, Brute?”

The boys ambled from the car, both gasping at the cold and the feeling of completely spreading out their aching limbs. After a moment of quietness, Neil kicked up a pile of snow towards Todd’s legs and the older boy scrunched his face at the cold, wet slap against his shins. Laughing happily at his expression, Neil pranced a few steps back in preparation of a counterattack. Todd didn’t disappoint, scooping a small handful of snow and tossing it towards his impish partner. Whoever casted the lanky, spirited boy as Puck could not have been more accurate.

Their playful snowfight came to an end when Neil tossed a miniscule ball of ice down the back of Todd’s shirt. He yelped at the frigidity racing down his warm back and slipped, landing on his butt in the snow and somehow managing to yank Neil down nearly on top of him. The pair chuckled as they attempted to get up with haste, shivering with pink fingers and noses.

“N-now I r-r-really have to-to change,” Todd stuttered through shivers, bumping his shoulder against the taller boy’s as they trudged to the open trunk. He did his best to unzip Jeff’s largest suitcase with bumbling, clunky fingers before giving up on the frozen digits. “You see w-what you did?”

Neil leaned over his shoulder to reach the bag and unzipped it after a few fumbled tries of his own. Grinning, he plucked a thick leather wallet up from the top of the neat piles.

“H-how about b-breakfast is on me?” the dark headed boy stammered back, his own teeth chattering as he waved the wallet between them. 

Todd recognized that he should feel bad, taking from the only family member that had honestly been there for him - more so when they were young, maybe, but continuing slightly even as they lost contact for the most part when Jeff left for Harvard. However, staring into Neil’s once-again lively eyes he decided that at least Jeff would forgive him. If they hadn’t left when they had, Todd may never have forgiven himself.

“Okay, l-let’s get dressed and-and we’ll see.”

Two sets of thick pants, two bulky sweatshirts, and a pair of high top sneakers - thank God Jeff’s feet were only half a size bigger than his, so he could just layer his socks and wear them without too much wiggle room - left the suitcase and the boys hurried back into the semi warmth of the car.

They stripped off their freezing, damp clothes and tossed them to the back seat. Somehow, he didn’t think he’d really be needing that suit wrinkle-free anytime soon.

It was somewhat difficult to maneuver the fresh pants, sweater, socks and shoes on in the cramped confines of the vehicle but neither one was willing to step back out into the frigid morning air. The situation was made even more nerve wracking for Todd, who did his best not to look at the younger boy as he squirmed the huge ‘Harvard’ insigniated top onto his bare chest. 

Of course, being on the same dorm floor for months meant that he had seen Neil practically naked many times in the communal showers, not to mention any time the boy changed in their shared room. It wasn’t - _it shouldn’t be_ \- a problem, if not for the fact that he knew his feelings far surpassed friendship. It felt wrong, like he was taking advantage of Neil, when he looked too long at the other boy’s skin.

A shiver spasmed through Todd’s body at the air on his still bare torso; lost in his thinking, he’d forgotten to actually put on the soft maroon sweater piled on his lap. His hands were still numb and shaking as he stretched it over his head. The blond hissed in a breath at the feeling of his icy fingers brushing against his abdomen.

“Hands cold?” Neil asked with a gentle smirk on his still rosy face. Todd nodded, doing his best to stop his jaw from bouncing quite so hard. That ice down his back had been certainly not been warm.

Neil seemed to read his mind, and held his own hands out to the smaller boy in repayment. “Here, give ‘em to me.”

When Todd didn’t move, his friend reached out and grabbed the boy’s quivering fists himself. 

“ _Jeez_ , Todd!” The taller boy exclaimed as he rubbed his red knuckles between two large paws. Neil’s hands really weren’t that much warmer, Todd noticed, but the action flushed heat through his chest and across his cheeks anyway. “Sorry about the snow fight.”

“It’s o-okay,” Todd soothed, pulling his hands slowly back to start the car back up. With the blast of hot air from the vents he felt his stiff joints loosen considerably. “I’ll let you buy me something warm.”

They switched on the radio and returned to the road, Todd trying to hide his smile as his passenger sang faintly along with The Fleetwoods’ ‘Come Softly To Me’ streaming through the car.


	4. Chapter 4

They entered Albany as the last of the pink drained from the sky. While Todd knew that they’d certainly need gasoline soon, they decided to stop for food first. Having missed dinner among the excitement of the night before, both boys’ stomachs were rumbling urgently. He told his passenger to keep an eye out for any restaurants as he crept through the early morning commuter traffic on lazy Albany streets.

They passed through the boulevards with wide eyes. While Todd’s family had gone on a summer vacation to Paris one year in his childhood, he’d never truly seen a modern, bustling city like this before. Of course he knew that this wasn’t one of the biggest, not by a long shot, but as they cruised under buildings even taller than Welton academy and past hundreds of people walking the sidewalks, he had a hard time believing that there was anywhere more colossal.

Neil seemed to share the sentiment, his eyes alight with interest and excitement. He pointed to the theater advertising the new film 'Ben-Hur' with a delighted laugh, and at a bookstore proclaiming a mass poetry collection including ‘American favorites Robert Frost and Walt Whitman’. This continued for nearly another half hour before the giddy boy shouted,

“Oh here, here, Todd! Stop here!”

Todd did his best not to stop short, but his quick, reflexive braking jerked both boys forward as he swung them into a parking spot in front of a small building. It appeared to be a converted train car emblazoned with ‘Lil’s Diner’ and a sculpted cow’s head across the rooftop sign.

“ _Neil!_ ” he reprimanded breathlessly. He’d never been good with knee-jerk commands or raised voices, and it was only heightened by his relative inexperience behind the wheel.

Neil, for his part, at least had the decency to flit an abashed grin before shrugging. “Sorry. This place looked good. Now come on, I’m _ravenous_.” He flashed his eyes gleefully and leapt from the Chevy - slipping Jeff’s wallet in his pocket.

Todd paused a moment, dropping his head to the steering wheel to slow his still pounding heart. Did he mention that this boy would be the death of him?

A light rap against his window made him jolt again, but before he could react the door was opening and Neil’s dimpled cheeks peeked over the frame. He bowed deeply and held out a hand to the blond sitting inside.

“My lady?” He theatrically drawled.

Todd couldn’t stop the absurd laugh that burst from his lips if he tried. He smacked the hand away and pushed himself to his feet, right into Neil’s space. While he expected the taller boy to step back immediately, he lingered a mere foot away with his hand still lifted. The warm palm brushed, almost imperceptible, against Todd’s elbow.

But before he had the chance to decide how to react, Neil spun around and strolled to the diner’s door. When he stood in the doorway, he tossed over his shoulder, “You comin’, Toddy?”

So this was his life now. He didn’t know whether to be thrilled or terrified.

As he stepped into the tiny building after Neil, a wave of possibly the best scent he’d ever experienced slammed into his senses. There was the usual smell of eggs, sausage, and toast that he’d grown up to in boarding school; but there was also something sweet he couldn’t identify by nose alone, as well as the saturating aroma of bacon wafting through the room. His stomach growled loudly just as a waitress came by, telling them with a smirk to take a seat anywhere and that she’d bring them menus in a moment.

Neil weaved them across the checkered tile floor to a bright white booth. The place was cramped but cozy, with not too many people inside so early on a Saturday morning. The waitress from before was already pressing two menus to the table as they sat down, leaving them with a “holler when you’re ready”.

Neil immediately tossed open one menu, flipping through the pages with a content smile. Todd found himself dragging the second slowly across the table to rest in front of him, but sat in silent bewilderment at only the first page.

It wasn’t long before Neil noticed his quietness - how he could ever tell between Todd’s usual and unusual silence he didn’t know, but he always did without fail. The brunette’s face twisted into a look of loose concern.

“Something the matter, Todd?”

“Uh, no, no, I just- um, I’m just a bit overwhelmed.” The older boy replied without looking up from his menu. He hardly knew what half of the options were, if he was honest. How was he supposed to decide on a meal?

“By the menu? Well, maybe you could just get what you usually get, you know, work your way up to more exciting stuff. I doubt this is the last diner we’ll stop in.” He chuckled lightly.

Todd felt his face heating and his ducked his head lower. “It’s just- well, this is the _first_ diner I’ve been to.”

Neil’s eyes grew wide and somewhat sympathetic as he breathed out, “What?”

“You know, some of us didn’t sneak out of our boarding schools all of our lives,” he teased, trying to shift the focus of the conversation. So what he’d never been adventurous or gone to a small town eatery? In truth, he’d barely had friends before Neil and the other Poets, so who would he have even snuck out _with_? And it certainly wasn’t as if he’d have come to a place like this with his family - the idea of his father’s pressed business suits and his mother’s pearls in such an ‘unrefined’ restaurant was simply alien.

“Okay, well, what do you like?” his friend queried instead, but at Todd’s helpless shrug he pressed further, “I mean, eggs? Sausage or bacon? Or are you a sweet breakfast kind of guy?”

“I, um, I like eggs sometimes. You know, not scrambled usually.” God, had he had enough scrambled eggs in school for a lifetime. “But other than that… bacon? I don’t know if I’ve had sweet breakfast, maybe as a child…” he trailed off and sneaked a peek at Neil’s face.

Neil looked at him softly, not unlike the night on the roof when he’d just told him it was his birthday.

“Alright, then: Monster Special it is.” The taller boy tapped on something on his menu, then spun it around for Todd to see. The list of included food under the title made up nearly a paragraph; four eggs, two pancakes, a choice of meat, cinnamon rolls or fruit muffins, hash browns, and more. Todd’s eyebrows raised nearly to his hairline and he looked up to the boy across from him.

“I can’t eat all of that,” he breathed incredulously.

“Well, not by yourself, no. That’s why we’ll share it,” Neil answered easily, as if it was an everyday occurrence. Although, with the younger boy’s apparent excitement over the idea, it might become one. “I was just thinking that way you can try everything you’ve been missing out on. And, you know, we'd save a little money.”

While the plan was fairly reasonable, Todd was almost certain that he agreed because of the rare blush dusting across Neil’s cheeks.

The pair quickly caught the waitresses attention and placed their food order with waters for each of them. As soon as the perky, kind woman scampered away with an “it’ll be right out, boys”, Neil sighed contentedly.

“I could get used to this.”

Todd hummed in agreement. The diner’s subtle background noise - clinking spoons against coffee mugs, sleepy chatter amongst patrons, and quiet, old music from the jukebox near the door - made him feel oddly weightless. Almost like none of the past few weeks could catch up with them now, that they really had left it all behind.

Then Neil brought him back to earth with a pondering, “Do you think we should write to them?”

“Who? Our parents?” The older boy questioned cautiously. He could hardly fathom how that would go: ‘ _Hi mother and father, I’m sorry about the car, it’s only that I love a boy much more than you ever showed that you loved me and we had to be free. But have a great life, give Jeff my best!_ ’ Yeah, they’d love that.

“No, the Poets and Keating of course! I’d bet Charlie’s out of his mind with worry - and jealousy. You know how he is.”

There was a time he may have been unable to imagine the wild boy as caring about anything other than himself and a good time, but he’d since learned that there was a lot more to Charlie Dalton than his first - or second, or third - impression suggested. To be fair, Todd assumed that wasn’t too different from how his friends felt about him. He hummed again.

“Maybe we should. B-but if we send mail to Welton don’t you think Nolan will tell our fathers that a letter came in from us? It wouldn’t exactly be hard to figure out where we are when the postmark says ‘Albany, New York’ on it.”

“So we don’t sign it from us and we leave town right after we mail it. No return address, no problem! Come on, Todd, it’s genius!”

Why did Todd always have to be the voice of reason? “And who do we sign it from that wouldn’t alert anyone we don’t want to know, but that our friends will understand?”

The brunette looked out of the window beside him for a moment, pushing his dark fringe from his eyes. After a moment of thought, he turned back with a smug expression.

“Sweaty toothed madman?”

The blond groaned and put his face in a hand as Neil laughed kindly. “ _No_.”

“Okay, okay. Why not Uncle Walt?” 

When he opened one eye to his friend, Neil’s face was genuine and serious. As he noticed him looking, however, the boy’s brown eyes grew large and pleading like a child asking for candy. That face never worked on Todd’s parents for him, but it seemed he wasn’t as strong willed as them.

“Please, Todd? They should know we’re alright.”

“Alright, okay. I guess you’re right. We just have to be careful.”

Just as he finished speaking the waitress came back with a tray carrying several plates of a variety of delicious smelling foods. The scent alone was enough to make him dizzy, but the sight of each plate bringing new wonders down in front of him made his stomach practically roar. He heard a similar sound from across the table and saw Neil’s face reflecting what had to be on his. He whispered “thank you” to the woman and she beamed back at the two of them before leaving to tend other tables.

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” The boys paused, taking in the feast before them. “Where do you want to start?” 

Todd looked down to the plate closest to him, holding pancakes that glistened in amber syrup. The pictures he’d seen had nothing on the sweet, golden smell wafting up to him. He felt almost drunk on it.

“These?” He asked, pointing at the warm, flat bread sitting by him. “Each take one?”

Neil nodded enthusiastically and the two began their breakfast, continuing to trade and share each portion as they ate. The younger boy laughed in glee when Todd’s nose scrunched unhappily at the taste and texture of the poached egg and shook his head in confusion when Todd almost cried over the seasoned hash browns.

“They’re just potatoes, Todd.”

“But the flavor is so… good! And the crispy edges, it’s just… wow. I’ll take yours if you aren’t eating them.”

By the time all of the plates were empty, both boys were giggling and clutching their overstuffed stomachs. Neil pulled out the wallet to see how much money they had as they waited for their waitress to come back with their bill.

“Uh, Todd…” Neil began quietly as he shifted through the contents of the leather folds. Todd felt his insides roll, and not from the pleasantness from the meal.

“What is it?” He responded, nervous. Did they not have enough money to cover breakfast? Jeff usually carried a fair amount of money on him, why did it have to be _now_ that he broke the habit?

His friend looked around them to make sure no one was listening. “This wallet? …It has over _two hundred dollars_ in it.”

Well, they certainly had enough for the food.

The blond sputtered out a shocked laugh, before breaking into unrestrained hilarity. Neil quickly joined him and the pair both found tears forming at the corners of their eyes at the absurdity of their entire situation.

“Who-” another string of snickers from the younger boy, “who carries that kind of money around? I don’t know if I’ve seen this much in my life!”

There had to be some kind of explanation, yet all Todd could offer in return - through his own residual laughter - was, “I told you Jeff’s my parent’s favorite.”

“Well, screw them. You’re my favorite and we’ve got the wallet, so who really won?” Neil blurted, seemingly without thinking. Within seconds both boys looked down with pink cheeks at the realization of what was said.

Thinking that their little laughing fit had caused enough of a scene, if the disturbed looks they were still getting from the other customers were any indication, Neil and Todd decided it was time to go and rose from the cushioned seats. The brunette removed three dollars - more than enough to cover their bill and a generous tip - and left it on the sticky tabletop. The pair grabbed their coats and slipped out of the restaurant, into the full sun of mid-morning.

“So, where to now?” Neil asked with a satisfied smile and a hand on his stomach.

“We need to put fuel in the car. It might help to get a map, too.”

Neil stepped off of the curb and held out Todd’s door for him again. The older boy was having an increasingly difficult time convincing himself that Neil treated all of his friends this way. Especially when he stepped down to casually sit in the open car, and brown eyes gazed at him warmly for a few seconds too long before disappearing around the outside of the vehicle.

 _Get a grip, Todd Anderson_ , he scolded himself. Their friendship was incredibly close and Neil acted accordingly, that was it. These things just happened in all boys boarding schools - after all, he’d caught Meeks and Charlie behaving similarly and there was no doubt that the brown haired boy was crazy about girls. 

No, these inverted feelings were only Todd’s. Sure, he knew simply ‘getting over them’ was virtually impossible at this point, but his traitorous brain could maybe _not_ bring them to the forefront of his thoughts every day, for a change.

He tried to shake everything from his mind when the other boy got into the car too, but he couldn’t stop himself from flitting glances to his friend as they backed away from the diner and onto the busy road.

It didn’t help that, every time he looked over, Neil’s eyes were always on him as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, like Todd Anderson, would also gladly cry over hash browns any day. Also, $200 should be about $1,700 now - Jeff carries a lot of dough, I guess.


	5. Chapter 5

After the boys filled up at a service station and got a map - of the whole Northeast area of the country, at Neil’s request - they wandered the city, looking something to do now. Their sudden freedom felt so vast, so maddening. What did people _do_ when they ran away?

Todd then remembered that being in Albany, they could tour the New York State Capitol. Jeff had always told him that someday he would visit every state capitol in the country: while he did still look up to his older brother, there was a certain amount of satisfaction to be had from experiencing some of his dreams before him. Maybe he could get used to living out from under the shadow of the infamous Jeff Anderson.

The grand exterior resembled a castle, but the inside was even more astonishing. Neil and Todd’s footsteps echoed across the marble floors up to the towering ceiling as they explored the roped off, public area. However, it wasn’t long before the weekend crowd became thick with field trips and tourists, so the boys made their way out and returned to the car. 

Back on the street, they discussed what to do next - but Todd found himself wondering how long they could get by without actually discussing any plans for the future. Neil seemed content to simply meander, though, so he decided to drop the issue. They’d figure something out in time.

Before long, they spotted the bookstore advertising poetry collections that they’d seen before breakfast. It seemed as decent a place to spend time as anywhere else, so the friends ambled casually towards the short brick building.

When they’d walked in, the soft ‘ _ding_ ’ of the bell over the door echoed quietly in the empty shop. Todd took a few curious steps inside, looking around for any signs of life. 

The inside was lined, floor to ceiling, with books of every kind. Even the dark wooden floors had stacks of large hardcover volumes here and there, and the air smelt very much like Welton; only, perhaps without the lingering scent of pre-adolescent boys. In fact, there was a certain stillness to the air that he’d only ever experienced in his and Neil’s shared room, on the nights they’d stay up late to practice for the actor’s play or simply watch the moon.

“Hello?” Neil called out, his full voice seeming too obtrusive in the preserved atmosphere.

A middle-aged man hastily appeared from what had to be an office behind the front desk. He smiled awkwardly at the two young customers from behind thick, horn-rimmed glasses; letting them know where the poetry was when the brunette asked, telling them to let him know if they needed anything else, and disappearing back to whatever he had been doing before.

Todd raised an uncertain eyebrow at his friend, wondering if perhaps they should leave this place too to find somewhere else to spend their day. Neil shrugged, unfazed.

“At least we’ve got the whole place to ourselves, huh? No shrieking Boy Scouts?” The boy murmured from the corner of his mouth before leading them to the store’s poetry section under a tall wooden arch.

Inside the area was dim, cramped, and strangely intimate with the overstuffed bookshelves covering the walls. He couldn’t help but wonder how long the advertisement outside had been up - to little use, clearly, if the thin layer of dust coating the paper spines was any indication. The little room almost felt like a new discovery made by the two of them: like explorers on the peaks of ageless mountains, marking this territory that had undoubtedly been visited by countless others as new and solely their own.

The pair spent much longer than they thought they would perusing the selection of flowing words and beautiful lines. As they skimmed through page after page, book after book, they’d sometimes catch snippets of poignant verses that they’d whisper to each other in the empty room: 

“ _Hope is a thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And never stops at all._ ”

“ _There we two, content, happy in being together, speaking little, perhaps not a word._ ”

“ _It brings back rapture and glee and glow, It brings back passion and pain and strife, And so of all the waltzes I know, Give me the ‘Artist’s Life’._ ”

Finally, Neil broke the simple stream of quotes to add, “Oh Todd, listen to what I just found:

“ _Children of the future age,_  
_Reading this indignant page_ ,  
_Know that in a former time_ ,  
_Love, sweet Love, was thought a crime!_ ” 

His friend shifted the book from in front of his face to meet the blond’s eyes. “What do you think about that?”

“Huh? It’s, uh, i-it’s nice.” In contrast to his flippant words, Todd couldn’t help but feel the short poem shoot down into his soul - into the very doubts and fears he’d carried with him since he realized that he loved the other boy.

“Nice? No, I mean do you agree? Do you think love should be free, no matter what?”

He wondered briefly if the question was a trick - some way to get him to confirm all that he’d been carrying inside, so that Neil could politely but urgently gather his meager things and catch the next train back to Welton. But no, Todd knew better than that. Neil was his best friend, and he’d never been malicious in the (admittedly few) months they’d known each other. There was nothing but kindness, curiosity - and was that… longing? - in his warm brown eyes. 

“Well, y-yeah. Yeah, I think that… love… shouldn’t be something that people are, well, have to be ashamed of. I guess.” The taller boy just ghosted a smile, and Todd felt more words pouring out of his mouth unbidden. 

“You know, why- why does it matter so much that it’s one man and one woman? You- we- I mean, look at our parents, you know? H-how well is that working? If a boy fell in love with another boy,” Neil’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly, so Todd rushed to continue,” or, or, a girl loved another girl, I don’t think it has to be so bad.”

When he finally looked back up to Neil’s face, the brunette was nothing short of beaming. His breath caught at the force of that full, radiant smile shining solely on him.

“So you didn’t mind Meeks and Charlie?” Neil asked, completely throwing Todd a curveball.

“Meeks and Charlie?”

Despite his confusion, he swore the room grew brighter with Neil’s sudden, delighted laugh.

“Yeah, Meeks and Charlie. They've been in love with each other since the eighth grade, when Steven started tutoring Charlie in Latin. They’ve sort of danced around it all this time - Charlie will bring girls around, then remember why he likes Meeks better in the first place, and Meeks will ignore him for a few days.” 

Neil leaned in, mock-conspiratorially with a softhearted grin. “They’ve even kissed a few times after the Dead Poets Society meetings, ‘carpe diem’ you know? They try to keep it under wraps around Cameron but the rest of us knew.” He paused, then shrugged apologetically. “Except you, I guess.”

Todd’s head spun - with the information and Neil’s body pressed so close to his. He’d vaguely thought he was cursed, that his orientation would leave him outcasted and silent once again if anyone found out. However, it seemed that the Poets were even more suited to him than he really appreciated.

“So they’re… they’re homosexuals?” Todd beseeched, barely stopping himself from adding 'too' to the end of that sentence. He could hardly believe this entire conversation was real: it was much more likely that he’d wake up from this bizarre daydream in a moment, realizing he’d dozed off to the poetry books in his hands.

“I don’t know about Steven, but Charlie likes both women and men, kind of like what they say about Marlon Brando. I’m not sure what you’d call that. He just loves Meeks the most.”

Todd felt the ‘and what about you?’ sitting on his tongue, but he forcibly swallowed it down. There was no way that he would be that lucky all in one day, and he felt that it wasn’t his place to ask anyway. Neil would’ve shared something like that with him on his own if he’d wanted to.

Instead, the shorter boy simply pointed to the book in Neil’s hands and whispered, “Maybe we’ll get that one.”

The brown eyed boy offered a demure grin and held up another book beside him, ‘Leaves of Grass’ embossed down the dark green spine. “This one, too?”

Todd smiled back and nodded his head. It’d seem wrong to leave the shop without a Whitman book - after all, in a way he was the man who started it all.

Once the boys had paid the odd man from before and left the bookstore, it was if all of the hours that Todd had been awake caught up to him in a flood of heavy drowsiness. He yawned deeply twice as they walked the sidewalk back to their car, and his friend turned a questioning eye on him.

“Sorry,” the blond murmured through yet another yawn. He felt himself longing to just sit down for a moment, maybe close his eyes…

“Maybe we should find a hotel,” Neil replied while steadying his swaying body with a broad hand on his shoulder. 

“But it’s so early, it’s got to be only four.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t sleep last night. You’ve been awake for over 24 hours Todd, let’s just stay here for the night.”

“What about the,” another yawn - and he really did try to stop it this time, but it came out of his mouth anyway, “what about the letters to our friends?”

Neil slid his arm fully across his shoulders and steered him towards the car. “I’ll write them and we can send them before we leave town in the morning. Let’s just find somewhere to stay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poems, in order:  
>  _"Hope" is the thing with feathers_ , Emily Dickinson (1861)  
>  _A Glimpse_ , Walt Whitman (1867)  
>  _Artist's Life_ , Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1917)  
>  _A Little Girl Lost_ , William Blake (1794)  
> I'm not sure when the rumors about Marlon Brando began, but for the sake of the story we'll say they were spread well enough by the late 50's.


	6. Chapter 6

As soon as they pulled into the Thruway Motel - a modest, two story place that looked cheap but clean - Neil announced that he’d try to get them a room and left the warm vehicle. 

Todd lolled his head to look around the surprisingly full parking lot. He’d been worried when they pulled in that perhaps there wouldn’t be any rooms available for them to stay. However, he could barely keep his eyes open and driving any further in such a state was making both boys willing to at least attempt to check in.

He knew that they’d need to make a reliable plan for their future quite soon. The two hundred dollars would last them a little while if they continued living somewhat frugally, although he was certain that they’d blow through the cash eventually if they kept staying in motels and eating out. With no income and no place to go, their freedom came with a fairly hefty strain.

The problem was, with their reasonably sheltered life in boarding school, Todd recognized that neither one of them had ever really been concerned with money before. As long as they kept up their strict regime of school work, activities, and good behavior, meals and shelter were always provided. Just thinking about the logistics of working these things out on his own felt dizzying on his sleep-addled brain.

At least, he corrected himself, he wasn’t truly ‘on his own’. Neil was with him now, for better or worse. As the younger boy exited the lobby, waving their key in the air excitedly while walking towards the car, he was struck by how glad he was to be exactly where he was.

It surely wasn’t Heaven, but it was as close as he’d ever been. 

He opened the car door and stepped out, trying his best to keep his body upright and his eyes from closing. After he’d helped carry their bags into their room for the night, he could blissfully pass out and get some much needed rest.

The boys decided to take the largest suitcase and Neil’s bag inside, leaving a smaller suitcase and a duffle bag - likely filled with Jeff’s running gear, to make sure he could stay in shape on his vacation home - in the car. Following a moment of deliberation, Neil reached into the backseat to grab the Whitman book they’d bought earlier before guiding Todd across the mushy, dirty snow on the pavement to their rented room.

When they set the bags down inside, Todd only paused a second to really take in their setting before shrugging and dropping himself onto the lone double bed in the middle of the dated room. Thin floral curtains filtered out some of the late afternoon sunlight, and the quilt beneath him wasn’t that itchy. A bed was a bed, and he wouldn’t be snubbing his nose at the soft comfort of a mattress anytime soon.

He knew that this had to be a terrible, terrible idea: sleeping beside Neil was a dream come true in the worst possible way. If he felt that he was taking advantage before by merely looking at the other boy, how painful would sharing a bed be?

Especially since he had something of a problem with sharing a bed at all. It wasn’t so much a problem that he wasn’t fond of it, but perhaps that he liked it too much. At least, he did when he was young enough to still get away with it; a smaller, sensitive Todd would almost always sneak from his room to Jeff’s in the middle of the night, comforted by another person’s heat and the sound of their breathing. Jeff had never fought him on it, simply rolled over sleepily to give his little brother enough room - not that he needed a lot, at that age - on the bed.

No, it was his parent’s that frowned on it, still trying then to get Todd to be as brave, as independent, as fearless as their firstborn. By the age of six, he started having his door locked at night. He wasn’t sure if it made him grow a spine or learn to prefer to sleep alone, but he certainly knew it wouldn’t do much for him now, with Neil.

But as his eyes were already slipping closed he found that for once in his life, he simply didn’t care.

He heard Neil’s fond laugh somewhere beside him, and let the other boy help him kick off his shoes and slide fully underneath the covers. He was almost certain that a hand brushed gently through his undoubtedly messy hair, and he couldn’t stop himself from nuzzling back into it a bit.

On the cusp of sleep, the last thing he heard was, “Sleep well, Toddy,” in a voice that could only be described as loving before everything melted away.

.

He woke sometime in the night, the large window facing him was no longer offering any light; instead, the soft glow of the room came from somewhere behind him, likely the table lamp on the other side of the bed. He had no idea what time it was or how long he’d slept, but before he could turn to mumble out his questions he became aware of the warmth of a body pressed tightly against his back.

Coming further into consciousness, he picked up on Neil’s steady voice reading out in the shadowy room.

“ _...And when I thought how my dear friend my lover was on his way coming, O then I was happy,_  
_O then each breath tasted sweeter, and all that day my food nourish’d me more, and the beautiful day pass’d well,_  
_And the next came with equal joy, and with the next at evening came my friend,_  
_And that night while all was still I heard the waters roll slowly continually up the shores,_  
_I heard the hissing rustle of the liquid and sands as directed to me whispering to congratulate me,_  
_For the one I love most lay sleeping by me under the same cover in the cool night_ ,  
_In the stillness in the autumn moonbeams his face was inclined toward me,_  
_And his arm lay lightly around my breast – and that night I was happy_.”

The younger boy’s voice slowly faded into silence with the conclusion of the poem. Or perhaps it was just Todd’s heart, which had reached a defeating volume. 

Clearly he wasn’t meant to hear the poem. Otherwise Neil would have read it to him when he was awake - that vivacious gleam in his eyes and a thrilling, dimpled grin upon his face. His words would sprout in towering wildflowers or explode in fireworks, not whisper softly across his skin like a gentle summer breeze. At least, that was how his friend had always shared poetry with him before.

This recitation, though, lacked all of the natural drama that Neil couldn’t help but exude. This was intended for no audience, poured out in a manner that seemed like the words simply demanded to be spoken to the dark. It was plain, raw, and beautiful. 

However, he had to wonder if this poem was still meant for him, in a way. It was too close, too genuine to be a coincidence. A friend and lover laying under shared covers, bringing about true happiness? The ethereal beauty of the world when the person you hold closest is seeing it with you? It was certainly the way he’d felt about Neil for a long time, but was it possible that the other boy was feeling the same earthquakes rippling through his heart? 

Thinking back honestly on the past day - Hell, the past month - without the filter of fear and self-doubt, maybe it really was.

The part of him he was used to hiding behind, the part Mr. Keating had fought so hard to free him from, decided the best course of action was to analyze (and reanalyze) every moment from the day he first met the other boy until any chance at making a decision or a difference faded away into nothingness; however the new part of him, the strong-hearted part that demanded he pull Neil away from the theater and his father and into the unknown, begged him to turn around. To say something. To _do something_.

He was almost afraid he’d missed his chance when he felt Neil shift on the bed, hearing the soft ' _thunk_ ' of the book being placed on the wooden nightstand and the ' _click_ ' of the lamp before the room was shrouded in darkness. However, the boy merely scooted closer to Todd’s turned back, and placed a hand - gently enough that he wouldn’t have noticed had he actually been asleep - on the side of his waist with a content sigh.

_A leap of faith, Mr. Anderson_ , he could hear Mr. Keating whisper in his head. All it took was a leap of faith, and the featherlight touch was the shove he needed to whisper Neil’s name into the thick air.

He felt his friend’s body frantically pull away from him, putting as much distance as he could between them on the double bed. In the split second movement, Todd was afraid the other boy might topple off the edge of the mattress. 

“Wait, don’t go.” Todd rolled to his other side and shot out an hand, somehow fitting it perfectly over Neil’s heart in the inky black night. He could feel the pulse under his palm, racing just as fast as his own.

Neither one of them spoke, the minutes dragging out like hours to the sound of two panting lungs. Although he couldn’t really see, he somehow knew that his and Neil’s eyes were locked, unblinkingly, on one another. Aside from their rising chests, the entire world froze completely.

Todd hardly knew what was happening, or what might occur next. Yet without a shadow of a doubt he knew, he just _knew_ that it wasn’t a mistake. He didn’t misread the situation. The poem, the touches, the look in his friend’s eyes: it was all for him and they both could see it. They simply stood upon a precipice - how easy it would be to fall and shatter on the rocks below.

But after what seemed to be several more hours Neil did the most miraculous thing that Todd had ever experienced in his eighteen years: he slowly, ever so slowly, brought the hand from his chest up to his lips, pressing a single kiss to the closest knuckle. The blond sucked in a breath and held it, but Neil didn’t fling his hand away or storm out of the room or any other scenario that still might have happened. That probably _should_ have happened.

No, both boys remained perfectly still, facing one another with the back of Todd’s hand pressed against Neil’s soft lips. Like a green, delicate sprout, the moment couldn’t have been more fragile. 

Yet, every tender acorn has the possibility of developing into an extraordinary, sprawling oak - despite it all, Todd had never felt so strong. 

Eventually, he couldn’t stop himself from whispering shakily, “Like Charlie and Meeks?”

He felt Neil’s lips stretch into a hint of a smile against his skin. “No,” he replied almost silently, but with all the surety in the world. “Like Todd and Neil.”

They both fell asleep like that, with Todd’s arm bridging the gap between their bursting hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poem here was Walt Whitman's _When I Heard At The Close Of Day_.  
>  And yes, the boys are a couple of sappy babies. Sorry I don't make the rules.


	7. Chapter 7

When Todd woke the following morning, he was sprawled across the bed. Golden morning sunlight was once again pouring into the room, one beam in particular shining right into his blearily blinking eyes. He rubbed a hand across the sheets and was disappointed to find them cold. The blond grunted in sleepy, mindless disbelief: Neil had kissed his hand and held it all night, the least he could do was still be there in the morning.

Suddenly, Todd shot up in the bed with a gasp. Neil _kissed his hand_ last night. In the middle of the night. After reading a poem about being in love with a boy.

_He **kissed** him._

“Oh, mornin’ Todd. I was starting to wonder if you’d ever get up,” Neil’s teasing voice greeted him from the other side of the small space. He jerked his head towards the sound, seeing the lanky boy seated at a cramped desk near the door. He hadn’t even realized that there was one in the room with how tired - and then distracted - he was the day before.

Neil rhythmically tapped the pen in his hand on the desktop. As he looked at Todd, the younger boy offered a soft grin. “Did you sleep well?”

Todd was at a loss. He knew he hadn’t only imagined the night before in his sleep; as many dreams as he’d had about his friend, this time was different. He didn’t even know what made him so sure, if it was something in the air or the feeling of lips on his skin, but it was _real_. That was all there was to it.

So why was Neil trying to avoid it? Had he changed his mind about his whispered words from last night?

“Um,” Todd cleared his throat, attempting to rid the morning huskiness from his voice. “Um. I think so.” 

“Good, that’s good.” The brunette turned back towards the desk and the papers Todd could now see splayed across its surface.

Well, Todd was pretty good at avoiding things, too; and while it kind of, sort of, completely broke his heart, he could pretend that nothing ever happened if it made Neil more comfortable.

Part of him wished he’d just slept through the night.

“What are you working on?” He asked instead, stepping seamlessly back into the role of friendship. ‘Friends’ was good, anyway. ‘Friends’ was safer.

Neil glanced back over at him with an, “Oh this?” He gestured beside him to the thin stack with his pen, before turning back to look at it. “I’ve just been trying to finish up this letter to Charlie without giving too much away, just in case Nolan or anyone else gets to it. You wanna read it?”

Todd nodded lightly, unfolding himself from his seat on the bed. It took him a moment to untangle himself from the blankets, but soon enough he was sliding his legs off the edge of the mattress. He must have kicked his socks off sometime in his sleep - he couldn’t help but flinch and shiver at the feeling of the cold carpet on his bare feet. He certainly hadn’t taken off his pants, though, because as he walked over to the desk he felt them rub stiffly against his legs.

He really needed to start remembering to put on more comfortable clothes in the evening. Even though one of them had been spent driving, two nights in a row in unyielding material was doing a number on him.

Once he reached Neil’s side, he leaned over the seated boy’s shoulder to read what was scrawled in Neil’s neat, looping print across the page.

_'Charlie,_

_Tell DPS and Captain not to worry - we’re both alive and well. I don’t know where we’ll be by the time you read this but I’m not sure that it would be safe for me to say anyway. Just know that we’re free, we really did it._

_I’d ask if our families were having quite the conniption, but it’s not like you can write back. Maybe when things cool down or we find a more secure way of sending letters we can give a return address._

_We wish you were all with us. I’m sorry that we left without saying goodbye._

_Sincerely,_  
_Sweaty-Toothed Madman'_

“You said we weren’t using that,” Todd protested vaguely, but he took the paper from the brunette’s hand and scratched out the last “a” in the signature, replacing it with an “e”.

_'Sweaty-Toothed Madm **e** n'_

That looked a little better. However, there was still something not quite right. He paused to deliberate, before adding underneath:

_'P.S. If you can get a message to Jeff, tell him I’m sorry about the Chevy.’_

Neil looked up at him with a pleased look, and shrugged. “We’ll put Uncle Walt on the envelope. This is just to make sure they know it’s from us.”

“I don’t really think they’d miss that, Neil.”

“Are you saying our letter isn’t sneaky? I really thought I might be the next James Bond,” his friend replied teasingly, pulling a charming smile. “If they ever made a movie, you think I could play Bond someday?”

Todd let out a small, fond laugh as he collected the paper and empty envelope beside it. “I think you can do anything.” He might have mumbled it, but he meant it.

He folded the entirely too obvious letter into thirds and placed it in its package - at least they’d be gone by the time the letter even got to Welton. Furthermore, it didn’t actually say where they were going, right? (Not that they even knew.)

As much as his nervous nature was loathe to admit it, Neil’s plan was fairly solid. Sure, their fathers were probably looking for them, but at least they could assure their friends this way without too much risk of being caught.

Speaking of where they were going from here, though…

“Hey, Neil…” Todd started, staring at his hands while they fiddled with the corner of the envelope.

Clearly they would have had to have this conversation sooner or later, and although it had only been a couple of days, they really shouldn’t put it off any longer.

In some ways, all of his life he’d simply ‘gone with the flow’: done all of the classes his parents signed him up for, and all of the activities that his headmasters demanded, regardless of any personal interest. He’d never been concerned with the future, because surely he’d be told what he would have to do there, too. However, this time, his fate was in his own hands - this time, he couldn’t just sit back and let someone else nudge him down the stream.

“Yes, Todd?” The other boy’s question shook him from his thoughts.

 _You don’t have to figure it out alone_ , he reminded himself. They’d work it out together. They just had to actually _talk_ about it.

“Well, I, I guess I was just wondering if we need to- to decide where we’re going… what we’re doing… you know, all of that.”

When he chanced a peek at Neil, the boy’s natural smile hadn’t left his face. At least one of them wasn’t worried.

“Actually, I had an idea about that last night- here, look at this.”

The younger boy tugged him back down over his shoulder by the sleeve and pulled over the Whitman book. As Neil flipped through the beginning pages, Todd tried his best not to breathe too heavily on his neck. It always drove him crazy when Neil did the same to him; if he was going to avoid making his friend uncomfortable while keeping his own heart intact, he couldn’t play with fire.

“Here,” Neil proposed, a long, thin finger gliding across a sepia photograph. Through the grainy distortion, Todd could see what appeared to be a small farmhouse in the middle of a wooded, fenced off yard. “West Hills, New York - a sub-town of ‘rural city Huntington’. Walt Whitman was born here.”

Neil turned his head towards the blue eyed boy with a ribbing grin, nearly brushing their noses together. “And before you do that thing that you do, no I’m not suggesting we live _in_ Whitman’s old house. But we could give the area a shot - they even call it a ‘hamlet’.”

Todd pulled back as much as he could with one of Neil’s hands still latched onto his sweater. He rolled his eyes in protest at the first comment.

“I- I don’t do a ‘thing’.”

“Ha! Oh yes you do.”

Instead of strangling the beautiful yet infuriating boy, he rolled his eyes again with an indulgent yet affectionate sigh.

“Sure, that sounds as good a place to start as any. If we don’t like it we can always just try somewhere else, right?” The blond questioned reasonably.

“Of course. Now, we should get ready and get something to eat before we leave town, huh?”

Todd nodded in agreement, already turning towards the suitcase by the bed.

.

After they both showered, dressed, and brushed their teeth, the boys grabbed a quick breakfast and dropped off their letter at the post office. Within a little over an hour, they were back on the road, Neil directing Todd to West Hills with their map across his lap.

Ten minutes out of Albany, when Todd reached over to switch on the radio, Neil must have mistaken his hand movement for reaching for him and the passenger laced their fingers together without a word. The simple action nearly made Todd drive off the side of the road.

It seemed that maybe Neil, just like the older boy himself, had merely been too nervous to say or do anything out of the ordinary until the other did: in case either of them had somehow forgotten or changed their minds.

 _Well_ , Todd thought, squeezing the hand wrapped in his, _I guess we’ll just have to work through that together, too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't my favorite chapter, I had a bit of trouble getting through it which is why it took a little longer than some of the others. Comment what you think?


	8. Chapter 8

West Hills was nothing like Todd had anticipated.

While they had technically seen the town in the introduction of Whitman’s book, he supposed now that the single picture of the poet’s old home, likely taken half of a century ago, probably shouldn’t have been the leading component of their expectations.

For one, West Hills was much less spread out than the wooded, grainy photograph would have them believe. Not that it was tree-less; far from it, in fact. The hamlet was surrounded by a small forest, a sort of barrier between it and the larger Huntington city area. A smattering of bare trees also stood tall among the town. However, the sprawling, uncrowded countryside of Walt Whitman’s youth must have been a thing of the past.

Yet, although the houses and tiny businesses were fairly clustered together - in comparison to the miles around his parent’s estate, anyway - West Hills still held that natural, scenic charm. The snow looked thin and clean, dusting over trees and rolling hills. He could see branches of frozen streams with ancient stone bridges over the narrowest points. Even the houses themselves added to the rustic allure: most of them in the old, farmhouse style. 

Everything seemed perfect, but not in the manicured way of the Vermont town they’d left. More so in the way that Todd could feel a sense of environment, history and community as soon as they entered the town limits.

Neil squeezed his hand and gasped here and there at particularly beautiful homes and woods as they passed, so he assumed the brunette felt the same way.

When they rolled closer to the town’s center, their vision became obstructed by vehicles parked up and down either side of the country roads as far as they could see. As the driver weaved them through the slim open space, they passed a young family getting out of their parked car. The two small kids were bundled up in layers of scarves, gloves, and hats, with the parents each picking up a tiny child to place on their hips. They began walking down the grass path beside the rows of cars.

Neil looked to Todd in curiosity. “What’s all of this?”

“I don’t know. Should we follow them?”

“I guess so, seems the whole town’s here doing whatever it is. Pull over.”

The boy’s blue eyes skimmed over the packed streets, looking for an empty spot to park. After creeping forwards for a couple of minutes, they found one just on a corner; a good thing too, because Todd really wasn’t sure if he knew how to parallel park anymore.

Once the Chevy was still and the keys left the ignition, Neil brought both of their black Welton coats up from the back seat. The blond took one and was just slipping it onto his arms when Neil stopped him, holding out the other coat.

“Wait, no, this one’s yours.”

“Oh. Are you sure?”

“Yeah, smells like roses.”

“Roses?” Todd asked incredulously as he slowly traded the jackets. Since when did he smell like anything in particular, especially flowers? The soap from the hotel had been a generic, clean laundry scent, but he hadn’t put on his coat since the day before anyway.

The younger boy’s cheeks warmed and he chuckled, embarrassed, as if he hadn’t meant to actually say that aloud. “Oh, yeah. Just this thing, you know. You always kind of smell like wild roses or something.” Neil flicked his dark fringe from his eyes, attempting to look casual. “Maybe it’s your shampoo.”

“I didn’t bring my shampoo with me.”

“Maybe it’s just you, then,” the other boy replied softly. They flicked their eyes towards each other, then away, then back again.

He felt his face reddening, equal parts flustered and flattered. Sure, _roses_ weren’t the first thing he’d think of for himself but he was somewhat touched that Neil would associate him with such a pleasant scent in his mind at all. 

Not to mention that he told him about it. Butterflies were multiplying by the thousands in his stomach and his hand still buzzed with the tingle of where it’d been pressed to his friend’s - friend? - for hours. 

The flickering eye contact continued, and Todd felt himself leaning in ever so slightly in mirror to Neil’s similar, subtle movement.

However, as their faces drew a hair’s breadth closer, Neil’s eyes glanced up just in time to see the family from before walking by behind Todd’s shoulder.

“Oh, hey, those people!” His eyes returned to Todd’s blue ones with what Todd was almost certain was a fleck of disappointment. “We’d better follow them.”

With that the moment, whatever it was, was broken and the two boys exited the vehicle, tucked into the correct coats. Todd sniffed inconspicuously at his shoulder, but he couldn’t smell anything. Maybe the events from the past few days were simply making Neil crazy.

Either way, the shorter boy couldn’t complain when Neil’s hand brushed against the back of his as they tried to keep up with the family ahead.

They didn’t have to follow the family long before they heard the sound of blasting Christmas music and chattering. They began to see other people walking down sides of the connected roads towards their direction, as if everyone was congregating to some central point.

The central point, as they rounded one last street corner, was a massive park filled with hundreds of people. Small market stands were set up around the edges, selling everything from sweet treats to gifts to holiday hams, with a dirt path encompassing the entire area. In the middle were great ice sculptures and snowmen, small children chasing each other around them. Even the trees had string lights and tinsel wrapped around them. The Christmas music, from some stereo Todd couldn’t see, connected the scene in a sense of good will and cheer.

The two boys stood at the border of it all: watching, in awe, as the family that lead them were greeted by other townspeople with beaming smiles and amicable hugs.

“I forgot it’s almost Christmas,” Neil said dazedly, white breath puffing from his lips.

“Me, too,” the older boy replied.

Christmas had always been a relatively unpleasant affair for Todd. The best part was easily getting to spend a little time with Jeff, but even that was difficult as their parents always fought for his older brother’s attention. Every year, lavishing him with gifts: chocolates from his father’s business trip to Sweden, or his own record player, or even the Chevy his senior year.

Not that Todd particularly needed or wanted fancy gifts, but when his parents only cared enough to get him a stiff sweater and a fountain pen every Christmas, it didn’t do wonders for his already low self esteem. It was only made worse when his brother would stare at him the rest of the break, a look of pity and frustration in his eyes. They both knew that there wasn’t anything they could do for the situation, though, so neither one of them would mention it.

So no, Todd wasn’t the biggest fan of the winter holidays.

From what Neil had told him in the beginning of December, his friend hadn’t exactly had a Holly Jolly experience with Christmas either. His father typically spent the break drilling him about his studies, while his mother would sit around looking like she would rather not exist. They would make an appearance at the Church, like all of the good families did, but would then spend Christmas Day off in separate rooms trying to avoid one another.

(Todd would never say it aloud, but from what he’d heard from both Neil and some of the other boys who knew more about the brunette’s family, Neil’s mother wasn’t that much better than his father.)

Here, however, with each other and a park full of laughing, merry people, maybe they would be willing to give it another chance.

.

The festival was nothing short of incredible. Not just the stands and the items they held, but the entire atmosphere. Neil and Todd wandered in rapt attention as fathers tossed snowballs with their children and mothers gathered their icy fingers to warm them, teenagers danced around the field with hot cocoas, and elderly men and women lugged around bags full of purchased supplies that were surely going to be for large family gatherings on the holiday.

As the day passed into late afternoon and the crowds began thinning, Neil spotted a particular older woman struggling with three large, overstuffed bags as she made her way towards the outskirts of the trampled grass. Nudging the older boy, he swiftly walked over - Todd hot on his heels.

“Here, ma’am, let us help you out with all of that.”

The woman, her face hidden behind the tall sacks, responded in ‘oh, thank you’s until the two boys relieved her of a bag each. Then, only carrying one - the smallest one, they had made sure - she peeked around the side of it gave them each a warm smile. A green plaid scarf was wrapped around her white hair, and her long thick coat almost dragged the ground from her (lack of) height.

“Well, now, you boys are saints. You really don’t have to help me, though, I’m just walking everything to my house down the block.”

“Oh, n-no, we don’t mind,” Todd assured immediately. His stutter had all but disappeared when it was just him and Neil, but he couldn’t help it coming back when he talked to people he didn’t know. Yet he still had manners, and if he and Neil had any hopes of sticking around this place - and after only a few hours he sort of really did - they’d better start by making friends. 

The taller boy grinned at him, then at the woman. “He’s right, it’s really no trouble. We’ll just drop them off with you.”

Appeased, the woman lead the way down the less crowded street, the boys on either side. They walked in friendly silence for a few minutes before the woman took a closer look at each of them. Todd could feel her eyes boring into the side of his face, as if trying to place them.

“You know,” she began, her voice sweet and curious, “I don’t think I recognize you two. Are you Kathy Gildern’s grandsons? She told me she had a few grandkids coming in to visit from university.”

“Oh, uh, n-no ma’am. We’re, um…” Todd looked to Neil for help, his blue eyes trying not to display too much concern. He knew they were far enough away from Welton that no one was likely to find them, but telling people who they really were somehow felt like a bad idea.

“I guess you could say we’re just new in town,” Neil picked up smoothly, nodding to Todd imperceptibly. The blond blew out a breath in relief that they were on the same page.

“Oh! My, where are my manners?” The woman shifted the bag in her arms to reach a hand out to Neil, and then Todd. Her handshake was soft yet firm, and a bit funny with the sack covering her face again. “I’m Judith Lynde, but my boys usually just call me Ms. Jude.”

“Pleasure to meet you. I’m Neil, and this is Todd.” Like always, the brunette’s easy demeanor and charm left the older boy floored. It was what had attracted - and terrified - him in the first place, the way that Neil just made people instantly like him. He could tell Ms. Lynde, too, was under the spell.

“And what are handsome young men like yourself doing out in West Hills this time of year?” With a quick look at Neil’s sweatshirt, her brown eyes widened. “And from Harvard too? My, don’t you boys have families that are missing you? What with Christmas in just a week.”

Both of the boys stiffened unintentionally, their eyes flying to meet each other’s. Sure, they couldn’t exactly tell her that they were prep school runaways, but he didn’t really want to _lie_. Although the walk had been short, the elderly woman had given him a feeling of gentleness and comfort. 

He could feel himself asking, _What do we say?_ to which Neil answered, _I don’t know!_ They dropped their gazes down.

After a split second the woman gasped aloud. “Oh… do you boys not have families? I’m so sorry, I’ve always got my foot in my mouth. This is my house here, why don’t you two come inside for a cup of something warm? I’ve got tea, cocoa, coffee… anything you’d like.”

“Oh, no, no ma’am. Thank you, but we don’t want to intrude,” the brown eyed boy hesitated, although his relaxation from their true background not being revealed was palpable. Todd nodded in agreement with his friend - and really, he had to figure out if that was still all he was supposed to consider him now- to Ms. Lynde.

“It’s no intrusion at all, please, come in. It’s the least I can do for your help.”

After a moment of nonverbal contemplation between the pair, they both smiled at her in concession. Without further ado the three carried their bags of holiday goods up the front steps and into the woman’s tall, lovely home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Todd smells like wild roses, fight me on it


	9. Chapter 9

After she’d fixed them both steaming mugs of her heavenly ‘family recipe cocoa’ - which smelt something like cream, mint, and nutmeg - to warm their hands, Ms. Lynde sat them at her large breakfast table. The sunset through the picture windows casted the kitchen in soft golden pink. 

The house was dim with the lights off, but not oppressively so. With the natural light from the windows and a few candles lit, the atmosphere was simply warm. Todd could tell that the home was old and well-loved, with creaky wooden floors and various signs of life: a mix of black and white family portraits by the stairs, a seemingly handmade blanket tossed over the couch, and chipped paint at the corner of the walls.

Speaking to them freely as she scuttled about, the short woman put all of her purchased items away in their various places.

When the boys tried to help her she batted them away with her slightly wrinkled hands, telling them to focus on their drinks and let her do the work. She still asked them questions as she carried on. Todd mostly let Neil handle them, trying not to give too much (or too little) away.

However with another mention of ‘her boys’, Todd found himself speaking up.

“Do- do you have sons?”

The woman laughed suddenly in a way that seemed she was surprised by the question. She looked at them for a moment, then must have remembered that they weren’t from the area and didn’t already know everyone’s stories.

“Well, you see, I lost my only son to the Second War.”

The two turned completely towards her, giving her their full attention. Todd could feel his lips pulling downwards; he guessed he’d always considered himself something of a pacifist but seeing yet another terrible outcome of war, in the eyes of this kind woman who lost her child, further cemented his distaste for it all.

“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Neil offered somberly.

“Now, now, don’t give me all of that. I miss my Anthony every day, but I’ve made my peace with his passing. Anyway, after a couple years I started taking in some of the boys around town who needed someplace to stay. You know, just one or two at a time, all about your age, but I’ve got the whole upstairs loft empty and I can’t take the stairs so easy anymore anyway. I've always thought Anthony would’ve liked that. He was such a giving young man.”

The pair nodded in empathetic understanding. Although she’d certainly been growing on him before, Todd felt himself beginning to quite like the compassionate Ms. Lynde. Not many people that he knew would use the death of their son to help other people instead of becoming bitter and angry.

“So the ones who stay with me, those are my lost boys. That’s why they call me Ms. Jude, or Saint Jude when they’re feeling particularly sentimental.”

Saint Jude? Todd wracked his brain, trying to remember which one that was, when Neil spoke up again.

“‘Patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes’? You know, I like that.”

She gave them a tender chuckle. “I sort of like it to, but you’ll never catch me telling them that. They already pester me enough, bless their hearts.”

Todd’s lips quirked upwards in a little grin. She was like the grandmother he never had, one who was teasing and nurturing instead of rigid and condescending, always asking his parents if he was slow since he wasn’t as brilliant as their firstborn.

As the natural light from the window began to darken considerably, the woman flicked on the ceiling lights. She finished up her business just as Neil and Todd finished their drinks.

“Say, where are you boys staying? The bed and breakfast down on Stenley Street?”

The two looked to each other with a shrug. They really hadn’t gotten that far, yet. It was helpful to know that there was a place to stay so close by, though: Todd remembered passing Stenley Street as they entered the border of West Hills.

“Um, probably ma’am, we’re not really sure yet,” Neil returned. “We just got into town today.”

Ms. Lynde inspected them for a long, quiet moment. Todd wasn’t really sure what she was looking for, or what conclusions she would make. All he knew was that he hoped it was good.

“Well,” the woman finally sighed out, “you know, you might as well just stay here the night. It’s getting late and you boys are already here.”

“Oh, oh, n-no ma’am-”

“That’s okay, we wouldn’t want to take advantage-”

“Nonsense!” She silenced them with a kind, wide smile. Her hands gestured around the kitchen. “Peter doesn’t always take on new boarders passed sunset if he doesn’t know them. Anyway, it’s been too quiet around here since the summer when my last boy moved out and you seem like good young men - I can always tell.”

After a moment of thought, she added, “If you’d like to find somewhere else tomorrow I won’t stop you, but at least let me house you tonight.”

“Are… are you sure?” Todd mumbled, trying to keep the hopefulness from his voice. He wasn’t used to people being so altruistic, especially adults. He’d always thought he just wasn’t likeable. Yet she was looking at both of them with all of the graciousness in the world.

“Of course I’m sure. Now go on, get your things wherever they are. I’ll pull out beddings for you so they’ll be ready when you get back.”

They thanked her enthusiastically before rushing out the front door. Once on the street, the boys let out a few giddy yawps and laughs as they ran towards the direction of the car.

.

Later that night, once they’d returned to the house, they chatted with Ms. Lynde for a few moments longer before she ushered them to the stairs and wished them goodnight. She placed a stack of soft sheets and blankets in each of their arms. After they both thanked her once again for her hospitality and bid her sweet dreams, they finally made their way up the steps.

The area upstairs was a loft style like she’d said, with a small, walled-off area the blue eyed boy assumed was the bathroom. Two twin beds stood on one side of the room, a dresser and desk on the other. The whole area was fairly plain. It appeared almost as if it had been emptied for new company. He felt a pang of deja vu as they both stepped forward to place their blankets and bags on the beds. 

“Kind of like your first day at Welton, huh?” The brunette commented, looking over his shoulder at Todd with a soft smile.

“I’m a little less scared than I was then,” he muttered, his own lips quirking up and blue eyes casted down.

“You were scared? Of me?” Neil let out a breathy chuckle as he turned to face the shorter boy, leaning back to rest against the bed beside him. One dimple appeared along with his smile and raised eyebrow. “Why?”

Todd’s face heated. He fluttered his mouth, looking for an appropriate response. He couldn’t just say, _oh well, you see, I was incredibly attracted to you from the moment you shook my hand and your hair turned copper in the sun and your smile sort of blinded me so being cramped in a room with you for a year was a bit daunting,_ could he?

Or could he?

As he debated the validity of this idea in his head - one side whispering _no, Todd, no!_ and the other screaming _yes, Todd, **yes**!_ \- he didn’t notice Neil straighten back up and take a small step forward.

“I, um. I liked you, too, you know.” Another step forward, only this time Todd had his eyes locked on the younger boy. “Not ‘liked’, I mean. _Like._ Present tense. I like you, too.”

Todd was surprised when he didn’t explode as Neil gently grabbed his hands, lacing their fingers together.

“I mean, you probably could have guessed that by now, with last night and everything - and I’m sorry I didn’t say anything this morning. I just got so nervous. You know? You’re so much better than me, Todd, but I just-”

Todd didn’t even realize he’d been leaning in until he was slamming his lips against the taller boy’s mouth to cut the rambling off. 

Regardless of having never been kissed before, it didn’t take a genius to tell that the kiss wasn’t exactly stellar: Neil’s lips had been slightly open and Todd sort of hit the side of his mouth anyway and it was just a few seconds too long for a peck but not long enough to be more…

Despite all of that, it was still the best feeling he’d ever experienced.

As he pulled back and peeked his eyes up at Neil’s face, the other boy was frozen in a momentary shock. In a matter of seconds, however, he came to his senses and slid a hand up to cradle the back of Todd’s head before he leaned in again.

With the help of the hand fitted into his short sandy hair, their lips locked in a considerably more enjoyable way the second time. Neither one of them seemed to know exactly what they were doing, so they simply moved together with what felt right. The older boy placed his free hand between them right over Neil’s heart.

It wasn’t passionate or explosive, but it was still raw in its nearly unbearable tenderness.

When the pair grew short on breath they pulled away, but Neil chased him down to rest his forehead against Todd’s. They took a moment to collect themselves, eyes still closed to block out the rest of the world.

Slowly, as if he didn’t want to leave whatever separate reality they’d found, the brunette drifted his palm from the back of Todd’s head down to the hand on his chest. Just like he had the night before, he raised pressed a soft kiss to Todd’s knuckle; only this time they had enough light to see each other’s smiles.

“Think we could push the beds together and sleep on them sideways? So there’s not a gap in the middle?”

“Okay,” Todd whispered in a happy daze. He knew the other boy could ask just about anything and in this state he’d have no option but to agree.

Once they moved the frames to their liking - as quietly as possible so as not to disturb their hostess - and prepared themselves for bed, the pair crawled under the covers together. Neil shifted himself for a minute until his feet didn’t hang off the edge, then turned to Todd. They both merely stared at each other, unsure what to do next, until Todd spurred them into snickers at their own ridiculousness. 

The younger boy opened his arms and the older squirmed into them, settling with Neil’s cheek resting on the crown of Todd’s head. Just as he slipped into the best sleep he’d ever had, he thought he may have heard Neil breathe out:

“I lied earlier. I don’t just _like_ you, Todd. I... I love you.”

But that could easily have been wishful thinking. Either way, Todd wouldn’t remember in the morning.


	10. Chapter 10

Todd woke once again to an empty bed and his legs tangled in the cold sheets. He flopped his hand over the mattress, half-heartedly searching for the other body that he already knew wasn’t there.

Damn Neil and his incapability of sleeping in.

He pressed his face into the pillows and groaned. The night before was coming back to him and he could hardly believe his own memories. He, _Todd Anderson_ \- an unassuming, skittish, incurable loner - kissed _Neil Perry_ \- charismatic, inspiring, made from sparks of the sun itself - right on the mouth. To quiet him from his self-deprecating confessions of affection, no less!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the lack of self-esteem that surprised him. All of them, from Todd to Knox to even cool and confident Charlie, had their share of feeling worthless: such was the plight of the wealthy son with too much weight on his shaking shoulders. Of the Poets, it seemed only Meeks had parents who treated him as an individual person with emotions and free will. However, the rest of them had fought the constant belittling all of their lives - no matter how much Todd wished it wasn’t the case (for Neil especially).

If he was honest it wasn’t even that much of a shock that it was him who acted first, not really. The way Todd had been drawn to Neil since they met, like a magnet to the other boy’s side, and how they were even more inseparable now than they were at Welton… well, it was only a matter of time before he snapped and professed his undying love or something of the like. To be fair, a kiss was not the most mortifying thing he could have done.

But no: what well and truly astonished Todd was how Neil had reciprocated all along. That _Neil_ had been the one pouring long-hidden feelings into the vulnerable air, and then kissing the blond back like their lives were on the line. And the night before when he pecked his hand, or the months of tender moments in their room, or even the lingering eyes and touches while among all of their friends…

So sure, maybe he shouldn’t be that surprised; maybe they had been coming to this all along, an undeniable fact visible to everyone else who cared to notice. It was just going to take him some time to get used to, that’s all.

Deciding he’d wallowed in his own thoughts enough, Todd rolled to the edge of their makeshift double bed and rose to his feet. After yawning and stretching his body, he did his best to make the bed out of habit and threw on a sweater over his t-shirt to block out the cool air. He then brushed his teeth in the small bathroom before making his way downstairs. 

Halfway down the steps his senses were slammed with the smell of cooking food and the sound of giggles and chattering. As he quietly continued his descent, he then picked up the low tune of a radio and clinking pans.

Rounding the bottom landing into the hall to the kitchen, Todd saw the brunette boy and their hostess leaned over the stove and laughing together like lifelong friends. Some recent doo-wop song swayed the pair’s hips in tandem - Neil’s about half a foot higher than the short woman's. The boy’s blue eyes watched the scene in a mix of gleeful bewilderment.

“Now just a pinch of rosemary, that’s what my grandmother always said. ‘Not too much, Judy, just a pinch.’ She was a nut, but she sure knew how to cook.”

They laughed again, lost in their own world, until Neil must have caught a peek of the lurking boy in the shiny silver range hood.

“Todd!” The single word was brimming with joy and easy affection as Neil spun towards him. 

Todd was suddenly overcome by the entire situation in the best way: who would have ever thought he could find this kind of happiness? If all it took was falling in love and running away, he wondered why more people didn’t do the same.

“You have perfect timing, Ms. Jude and I were just finishing breakfast.”

He took a meek step forward, fully into the kitchen. As happy as he found himself, another part of his brain still cautioned ‘ _stranger!_ ’ at Ms. Lynde’s warm grin. “Y-you’re cooking?”

The younger boy shrugged with another laugh. “I’m watching and learning. Did you know that Ms. Jude’s grandmother lived just outside of Paris? She’s using her recipe to make quiche.”

Todd felt a smile touch his own face as he leaned against the small island countertop, slowly but surely dropping his guard.

“I… I visited Paris once when I was young. Just a few months o-over the summer. _Ça sent bon. J’aime prendre… le petit déjeuner?_ ”

“Ah, _merci, merci! Je suis touchée_ ,” Ms. Lynde answered in a much smoother accent than Todd’s stumbling attempt.

Neil looked between them in confusion. Before the older boy could try to translate, their hostess explained with a pat to his hand, “Todd here said he enjoys breakfast and complimented the aroma, so I was just extending my thanks.”

She then turned to put their meal in the oven while tossing over her shoulder to the blond, “Your French is good for having only used it so long ago. You must be very gifted.”

He whispered a surprised “thank you” at the unexpected praise as a soft flush rose to his cheeks. With the woman facing away from them, Neil gave him a quick convivial wink and an accompanying grin.

The three continued talking as they prepared the table and waited for the food to be ready. With every offhand compliment or kind gesture Ms. Lynde effortlessly provided, Todd could sense both he and Neil were completely out of their element. The idea of courtesy and affection shared from an adult in a position of power, with nothing to gain and no one to impress, was nothing short of mind-boggling to the boys. Yet he could also feel their walls coming down brick by brick. 

Or perhaps Neil’s walls had been down since before he had even gotten out of bed: as they were all seated - digging into one of the most delicious meals he’d possibly ever had - the brown eyed pair folded each of their hands over the table like his parents had on occasion when they had something to chastise him about.

He shifted uncomfortably and put his fork down at the attention on him, despite the mood in the room being far from disappointed like he was accustomed to. In fact, both Ms. Lynde and Neil were looking at him in the same amiable way they had been all morning. It only made him more nervous since he wasn’t sure what to expect.

“So, Todd, Neil and I have been discussing something but I thought it would only be fair to get your opinion as well,” Ms. Lynde began and then stopped, staring at him once again. Neil looked about ready to burst from his seat, so Todd ventured a cautious,

“Um… yes ma’am?”

“I know that last night you boys mentioned staying at the bed and breakfast, and the Brown’s do run a very nice place, no doubt about it - but having talked to Neil,” she gestured a hand towards the boy in question who nodded agreeably, “you’re going to be in town for the whole winter break?”

Todd made a vague noise of assent, not wanting to contradict anything Neil may have shared about their supposed ‘past’.

“Well, charges do run up there - not that I doubt fine young Ivy League boys could pay your rent - but I have a hard time letting you two run off and pay for another place to go when I have this big old empty house and your bags are already upstairs.”

Todd immediately shifted his eyes to the brunette when the meaning of the woman’s words set in. They may have both helped her with her groceries and Neil with breakfast, but it wasn’t as if she had any reason for such overwhelming hospitality. Was she really inviting them to stay long-term just like that?

Neil’s excitable nod told him yes.

“Like I said, Neil and I discussed the situation this morning and everything can be easily worked out should you decide to remain here for your time off; I know there are a few places hiring if you’re wanting some extra cash or even something to do, but it’s up to you. The bed and breakfast is a wonderful place to stay, too if that’s what you’d rather.”

Todd looked to Ms. Lynde, to Neil, and back to Ms. Lynde again. Firstly, why was he supposed to decide? He wasn’t very good at making decisions, which was why he generally always let someone else choose. Not that his input was frequently asked for anyway.

Secondly, however, how did they even think he could say no? The short time that they had spent with the grandmotherly woman was already enough to resurface old, buried dreams of a perfect family that offered understanding instead of criticism, love in exchange for disdain. While he’d had a semblance of that from his brother, this house and the people inside seemed to fill a hole he’d forgotten was even there.

Finally, before the offer could be taken back or anything worse, Todd gave a small, demure nod.

“Well, I- I think it would be nice to stay. If, uh, if it’s really okay with you.”

The beaming smiles he received from the other two at the table assured him it _really_ was.

Yes, as far as families went, this one would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “ _Ça sent bon. J’aime prendre le petit déjeuner_ ” is roughly “It smells good. I like to eat breakfast”
> 
> “ _merci, merci! Je suis touchée_.” is roughly “thank you, thank you! I’m touched.”
> 
> Sorry for the late (and short) chapter!


	11. Chapter 11

The next few days passed in a flurry of meeting Ms. Lynde’s friends and associates, helping the woman decorate and prepare for the holiday, and adjusting to their new lives.

Ms. Lynde - or _Ms. Jude_ , as she kept having to remind Todd - first brought them to a quaint bakery by the park to meet her friend, the owner, Mr. Curtis Turner. The old man himself had been pleasant if not slightly vacant, but his bakery was nothing short of heavenly. The smell alone as they had entered the door nearly made Todd faint: the aroma of baking breads from the back and the fresh herb loaves placed carefully in the display case up front.

Who would have known that food could induce such a strong reaction from him when it wasn’t slop meals made en masse for hundreds of schoolboys?

Yet if he thought his reaction was strong, it had nothing on Neil’s. The brown eyed boy’s face was overcome with a look intensely familiar to Todd: the look he’d gotten when he rushed into their room with the Midsummer Night’s Dream flyer, or just after they’d kissed the first time the other night (and every time since). It was his ‘I’m doing what makes me happy, damn the consequences’ face, for when he discovered something that he really wanted.

The bakery wasn’t the same as acting by any means and they both knew it, but Todd was glad Neil could still find something that made his eyes light up in excitement.

Luckily, Mr. Turner had been looking for another set of hands and took an instant liking to Neil as people always did. While shaking his hand, he asked the brunette boy to come back the next day to learn how to work the cash register, where he’d earn $1.15 per hour. Just like that, Neil had his very first job.

After Neil went in the following morning to learn his way around the shop, the next place Ms. Lynde - no, Ms. _Jude_ \- took them was the Christmas tree farm just a few townships over. The woman suggested they take her larger, older car so as not to scratch up theirs, although she still let Todd drive. Neil sat in the back but leaned forward over the front bench like an enthusiastic, sweet dog as they drove over the little hills and winding roads.

She told them about how she hadn’t planned to put up a tree this year since the hassle wasn’t worth the look of it in an empty home. That for the holiday she would have jumped from house to house, visiting the men she’d sheltered and their new families to give them gifts and share a bit of the day together. However, if she was adding two more “youngsters” to her list of lost boys, she demanded that she would give them the holiday season they deserved - no matter how much they assured her that they didn’t need her to go out of her way.

This, apparently, included decorating a tree. As they rolled into the parking lot of the sprawling farmland, they were met with only a few scraggly, short evergreens to choose from. It hadn’t exactly been a surprise when he considered the fact that Christmas was just five days away.

Todd’s family had always had a great, thirteen foot tall monstrosity in the foyer that was set up and adorned elegantly by the staff. When he’d enter the front door upon returning from school, there it would stand: proudly displaying its perfectly coordinated crystal and silver ornaments. The ultimate symbol of his parents’ esteem and wealth, under the thin guise of holiday spirit.

He wasn’t sure what Neil’s family’s tradition was, but judging by his expression of slight confusion as they tied the best spruce they could find to the top of the car, he wasn’t sure the younger boy had ever personally had a tree at all.

The kindly woman introduced them to the owner of the farm as well, an unspoken offer of a job here for Todd lingering in the air. He shook the farmer’s hand and smiled politely, but refrained from making any interested inquiries. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the nature aspect - in fact, he found himself breathing in the fresh air like a cleanse to his soul.

It was just, well, the sawing was awfully loud and frayed all the nerves that the plants were attempting to mend. He tried not to feel spoiled or dejected as they reentered the vehicle and made their way back to West Hills.

(As the boys had gotten into bed that night, Neil had held him tight, peppered kisses across his face, and assured him that it was okay to take his time. They weren’t in any rush now.)

The day after that, Ms. Jude took them to one last place; back to the park where they had met her. All of the little booths from that first day had long since been taken down, and the fresh blanket of crisp white snow transformed the area into something serene and peaceful. It was a far cry from the bustling center it had been previously, although there were still a few people milling about - walking the shoveled paths, resting on the benches, or in the case of a tall man with a tiny, giggling child, playing in the snow.

He seemed to be the reason they were there, Todd guessed, as the woman led the pair over to the man in question. He was just tossing the squealing little boy into the air as Ms. Jude stopped in front of them, Neil and Todd standing (or hiding a bit, in the blond’s case) behind her.

“Nicolas, it’s so good to see you,” she enthused to his turned back - her round, creased face pulling up into a beaming smile.

The man lowered the child to the ground and spun to face her with a similar expression. His coat shifted open with the movement, revealing a blue police uniform underneath; ‘Sheriff Dyer’ stamped into a pin over his breast.

“Why, hello, Ms. Jude! Come by to talk about Christmas? My wife’s practically cooking already, you know how she gets,” the man answered, leaning down to wrap her in a tight hug. As he did so he appeared to notice the two boys for the first time. In that fraction of a moment, his demeanor changed drastically from the open laughter and affection to guarded and authoritative.

He pulled back from the embrace, unconsciously tucking his child marginally behind his leg.

“Who’re these young men?” His voice was kept level and courteous, but Todd could see in his squinted eyes that he was inspecting them thoroughly. He had to keep himself from squirming under the gaze or shifting closer to Neil.

“Now, now, don’t be like that. These are my new boarders, Neil and Todd. They’re on break from Harvard!” Ms. Jude replied, gesturing for them to step forward.

Neil immediately held out a hand. The sheriff took it and he greeted with, “I’m Neil, sir.” 

The man gave him a look as if to say _‘go on’_ ; Neil spared a split second to flit his eyes nervously towards Todd. He wasn’t sure if the man caught it before the brunette continued, “Neil Keating.”

Decently satisfied, the man then shifted towards Todd; accepting the hand that he, too, extended. He did his best to keep it from shaking as he stumbled out, “Uh, I’m Todd An-An-Anthony, sir.”

They hadn’t really talked about it, but in their own unspoken way, both Neil and Todd seemed to agree that they should keep their last names hidden. It wasn’t as if they had any form of identifying who they really were anyway. He could hardly believe that they hadn’t been asked until now, although maybe if he’d taken the time to prepare he would have come up with something a little less idiotic than “Todd Anthony”.

“Did you forget your name there, Mr. Anthony?” the man questioned with a raised eyebrow.

However, before he could even stutter a poor excuse, the elderly woman swooped in to save him. She elbowed the sheriff lightly in the stomach and huffed up at him.

“Oh please. He’s just shy, Nicolas. I remember another young man acting the same way when I first took him in.” At her pointed look the tall man seemed to defuse, even offering them a hint of a smile.

A small voice spoke up from below them, coming from the little boy peeking his head between his father’s legs. “Who was shy, Ms. Judy?”

Todd had nearly forgotten that he was there.

The woman laughed fondly, and reached for the boy’s tiny fingers. He scurried out from behind his father to cling to her hands, giving her a wide, gap-toothed smile. With a closer look at his face, Todd figured that the child couldn’t be more than four or five.

“Well, Nicky, when your father was a little younger than my new friends he was very quiet,” Ms. Jude conspiratorily whispered with a wink. “Can you imagine? He didn’t used to be so big and tough.”

The little boy, Nicky, burst into gleeful, childlike giggles. Todd felt Neil flinch beside him: laughing at their fathers anywhere, but particularly in public, would’ve been a crime just about punishable by death in both of their households. The two teenagers watched in uncomfortable tension, waiting for the reprimand. However, the sheriff merely pulled his squirming son back to rest against his legs and ruffled the boy’s hair with an exasperated and slightly embarrassed laugh.

What?

“Yeah, yeah. Listen, I’m sorry for the enquiry boys, I hope you understand. I just have to watch out for Saint Jude here. She’s the closest thing to a mother a lot of the men in town have got.”

Still thrown off by the lack of punishment to the still snickering child, they chorused bland “yes sir”s and “we understand”s while Ms. Jude daintily rolled her eyes at all of them.

“Anyway, I just wanted to introduce them before you went and hauled them off to the clink for ‘lurking around’ or whatever you’d call it these days. Oh, and I’m sorry about Christmas, but I think the boys and I will just be staying home. I don’t want to drag them all over kingdom come on the holidays, if you get what I mean.”

Little Nicky raised his voice again, his laughter suddenly gone. “You’re not comin’ for Christmas anymore? But I made you somethin’ and Mama helped me wrap it and everything.”

Kneeling as carefully as she could, the woman put herself at eye level with the child. Todd felt as if he was in another world entirely. Was this how some people treated their young? He couldn’t begin to imagine what type of life he or Neil may have lead had they always been given the compassion so apparent in this little town.

However, if their parents hadn’t done all that they did, he might not have the memory of Neil’s lips on his, the warmth of him in his bed each night. His lips quirked upwards of their own volition. At least it hadn’t turned out all bad.

“How about I come by for an hour or two in the morning, huh? And I’ll let Neil and Todd sleep in a little bit?” She looked around to each of the people around her. “Does that sound okay?”

They each nodded avidly, all satisfied with this change of plans. 

After a few minutes more of chatter the older boys helped Ms. Jude back to her feet and the two groups parted ways. The woman began to rattle out plans for the next few days, but Todd found it hard to focus. 

He’d been toying with the idea of writing Neil a poem for Christmas, but had dismissed it when he realized that it would be unlikely that he would get any alone time with him on the holiday - especially since it had become routine for the younger boy to be downstairs talking with Ms. Jude by the time Todd woke up.

There was also the fact that anything he came up with to write wasn’t exactly something he’d want their new hostess to hear. Despite all of her benevolence thus far, he wasn’t sure how thrilled she would be to know that the boarders upstairs were a bit more than mere friends.

However, now that he knew they’d be granted a few, sacred moments of privacy, the floodgates crumbled and his mind was bursting with fragmented poetry and adoring rhymes. As they all walked down the street, the taller boy gave him one of his secret, mushy smiles.

He decided then that this had better be the best damn poem he’d ever written.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As of the end of this chapter, it should be December 21st - the boys have been “missing” for 6 days.
> 
> Quite the eventful week if you ask me.


	12. Chapter 12

It was like Welton all over again.

Well, not Welton itself; there, he didn’t have such soft sheets under him, or the quietness of a nearly empty house, or a long, warm body wrapped around his with steady breaths puffing against his stomach. There, Neil didn’t fall asleep with his head resting on Todd’s lap as the blond quietly read to him, both tucked around one another under a large, heavy quilt. There, the entire life he lead now would be nothing but a fanciful dream to be expelled from his mind as a painful reminder of the impossible.

So no, maybe it wasn’t _exactly_ like Welton all over again.

But as Todd crumpled up another piece of paper covered in poor, scrawling attempts to capture all that Neil was to him and tossed it under the bed, he couldn’t help but remember the last time he’d tried to write for Keating’s class. The weekend he’d spent awake into the wee hours of the morning just trying to come up with something he wouldn’t be ashamed of for the rest of his life. The feeling that he was going to rip his hair out strand by strand as he shredded yet another failed poem.

He had considered writing - vaguely, of course - about his roommate then, too, but had dismissed the idea immediately. Now, however, that was precisely the topic he’d cornered himself into. Somehow it made the whole process even more difficult than before.

He dropped his gaze to the dozing boy. From his perspective he couldn’t see much more than messy umber hair and bare, freckled shoulders before the covers concealed their intertwined legs. One of Todd’s socked feet was pressed under the hem of Neil’s pajama pants against the heat of his shin - wonderful as the other boy was, he never complained about how icy the ends of Todd’s limbs could get in the night.

The short time that the boys had been together in whatever manner they were now simultaneously felt an eternity and yet not nearly enough. He still found himself blushing each time they touched and gasping into every kiss as if it were something rare and breathtaking. Neil appeared to enjoy the simple wonder he received from any form of his attention; thus he had taken to sneaking tiny pecks to his hands when no one could see them in the day, as well as tangling their tongues languidly and sweetly in the seclusion of their room at night. Todd wasn’t sure if he was more appalled or amazed by the unrestrained affection that poured from the younger boy.

It was a risky business, undoubtedly. However, a simple look into the adoring brown eyes of the boy he loved made it easy to forget just about everything else.

Yes, he’d turned into a sentimental, useless puddle at the hands of Neil Perry. Though by keeping most of his mushy thoughts locked firmly inside, he tried to convince himself that he could forget about that too.

(And anyway, it wasn’t as if that was the worst fate he could have.)

He pulled another sheet of looseleaf paper off of the nightstand beside him and braced it on the book in his arm. After tapping his pen against his bottom lip in contemplation, he brought the tip to the page.

_'Running from winter_  
 _like we’ve forgotten how to stop,_  
 _I come to realize in brief moments_  
 _of everlasting still_  
 _That your sun beam warmth_   
_has always surmounted_  
 _The weight of the whispered cold_  
 _against our skin_  
 _But we could go on forever_  
 _Or stay here twice as long_  
 _When the sun holds the hand of the moon.'_

A frustrated groan spilled from his throat. Everything he wrote just wasn’t enough, or was too teenage-girl love letter, or didn’t really say how much he felt for the boy whose heart beat gently against his thigh. Worse yet was when he somehow captured a strange mix between all three.

With a sigh, he slid this one as well to the pile hidden under the mattress like another load to a landfill of disappointing words. 

Neil shifted and grumbled sleepily at the movement of his human pillow. The blond offered a tender, secret smile as he ran a hand through the dark locks tickling his abdomen.

“Todd?” Neil murmured almost incoherently. Tilting his head up to squint at him, he continued, “You okay? Why’re you ‘wake?”

“I’m fine, it’s okay. You can go back to sleep.”

The drowsy boy merely blinked at him in response. 

“Oh alright.” With another deep sigh, he leaned over to switch off the lamp: Neil had his first official day at the bakery the next morning and Todd knew that he was too stubborn to fall back asleep if the other boy was still up.

It wasn’t like he was going to be coming up with any masterpieces that night anyway.

Sliding down the mattress until he was completely reclined beside his impossible lover, they readjusted until Neil’s face was tucked into the crook of Todd’s neck and their arms curled around one another.

“G’night Toddy,” the brunette whispered contentedly into his skin, sending a light shiver down his spine but bringing a small grin to his lips.

Somehow, soon, he’d figure out how to say the I love you hiding underneath his tongue. But for now, he’d surrender himself to the pleasant darkness pulling him down.

“Goodnight, Neil.”

.

The next morning he had woken early - way earlier than any normal human should have to - yet Neil was still absent from the bed. He was, surprisingly, still in the room though: hopping on one foot as he squirmed into the brand new work pants they had bought him for his job. While Jeff’s pants were doing them fine during the day, they were simply too baggy to be professional.

After a moment of watching, amused, Todd hummed out some form of greeting to alert the other boy that he was awake. Neil looked to him in happy shock as he finally clasped the fitted black slacks. 

“Oh, you’re up!” He quickly stumbled over and dropped a kiss to Todd’s forehead, his breath smelling like toothpaste. “I didn’t expect to see you awake before I left.”

At another hum of acknowledgement, Neil stepped back to give himself room to continue dressing. The boy tugged the white shirt in his hands over his torso, lanky fingers fumbling on the buttons. He was jittery - thrumming like a plucked guitar string. The blond wasn’t sure if it was from anxiousness, excitement, or both.

After pushing himself up with a groggy noise and shaking the fuzziness from his eyes, Todd reached out his hands to help. “Here, lemme do it.”

Neil relinquished the offending plastic pieces without hesitation. His voice was soft when he murmured, “Thank you.”

He worked in easy silence, calmly slipping the round pieces through their slots. The taller boy leaned down to give him a better reach as he got up to the top of the shirt.

“So why were you up so late last night?” 

His fingers froze as he shifted his eyes up. With their faces merely inches apart, Todd had a perfect view of Neil’s raised eyebrow and ghost of a smirk. He felt his face grow warm as he returned to the last three buttons.

“N-nothing. Just reading.”

Neil huffed a little laugh and made a disbelieving sound. “You know I’m going to think it’s perfect whatever it says, right? You’re a great poet, Todd.”

Folding down the white collar and patting his chest, Todd sat back out of the brunette’s space. He felt the blush creep up to his ears even as he mumbled, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He most definitely was not a ‘great poet’; sure, he could string words together well enough every once in a while, but it wasn’t anything more than that. Besides, weren’t holiday gifts supposed to be a surprise?

Neil muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “you’re impossible” as if _he_ was the ridiculous one, before acquiescing:

“Alright, whatever you say Whitman.” With a fond eye roll, the younger boy leaned in to leave a chaste, closed-mouth kiss on his lips. “Walk me out?”

 

Once they’d said their goodbyes - respectful and friendly, as Ms. Jude was there at the door with them - Neil walked outside to start his short trek to the bakery. The dawn light was barely enough to make the world visible in faded purple tones, and the pair under the door frame waved as he ambled cooly out of the driveway. 

Upon closing the front door Todd lost the fight to an enormous yawn and was ushered back to the stairs by a caring, determined Ms. Jude. Despite his half-hearted protests, he did long to return to sleep: yet as he lied back down in bed, he couldn’t help but do precisely what Neil had told him not to. 

He worried about the poem.

In fact, he worried incessantly about it for the rest of the day until Ms. Jude called up to him that if he wanted to make Neil’s lunch break he’d better get going.

When the brunette had gotten the job, his boss had informed of the hour break he’d get once a shift for lunch; even suggesting places around the center park that had the best meals and prices. Then Neil had asked Todd if he would like to come eat with him - of course he’d agreed.

Now he was incredibly thankful for a reason to get out of the house. He was driving himself mad while the pile under the bed doubled in size, threatening to drown him in black scribbles and weak metaphors.

As soon as he stepped outside, brown lunch bags in hand - courtesy of Ms. Jude - he felt his hazy mind clear. It was oddly similar to the feeling of stepping out of the old cave, after the Poets had spent a night puffing smoke out of their pipes. Todd took a few deep breaths and expelled them along with all the anxiety he’d unknowingly let build up in his chest.

Neil was right. Whatever he ended up giving to him would be okay, wouldn’t it? And if it wasn’t, he could write him more poems someday; poems that found their way from his brain to his fingers easily; poems that reminded both of them that they didn’t have to be perfect on the first try.

It was slow going, but he was learning to handle his stress before it could consume him. Neil would be proud; even he was proud of himself, in some small corner of his mind.

A calm expression on his face and his head held somewhat high - or at least higher than he was used to - he strolled towards the Beekeeper Bakery. After all, Neil would be waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Please Excuse My Sad Attempt At Poetry Thanks.
> 
> Also is this too sappy? I feel like these boys are a couple of mushes. I don't know, let me know what you think.


	13. Chapter 13

The air outside was cold, certainly, but without a breeze and the sun shining down over them it was pleasant enough in their thick black coats to stay out in. They decided to take their bagged lunches to the park, finding it reasonably empty.

Towards the back of the long trail, where the trees began to thicken to the point that they could no longer see the line of shops on the other side of the white field, they found a solitary bench. Neil pushed off as much of the wet snow as he could before gesturing for Todd to sit down with him.

Todd passed the brunette one of the bags and they ate their home-made sandwiches in companionable chatter: Neil describing his day so far and Todd firmly diverting any attempts to talk about his. However, after a few tries to wheedle a little out of him, the younger boy seemed content enough to do most of the speaking - as per usual for the two of them.

He recounted his boss’s strange yet humorous antics through the day and the fact that none of the customers seemed surprised by the old man wandering about like he’d forgotten what he was doing every once in awhile. It seemed Mr. Turner, for every ounce of small town charm, also came with a hefty vein of absent mindedness.

Then, apparently the sheriff had come in with little Nicky and gave Neil a gruff but welcoming smile when he’d joked kindly with the child before passing him the cookie they’d requested. The little boy had then told his father very seriously that Neil was his new friend, and the sheriff had replied that maybe Neil could be his friend too. As far as acceptance went, they assumed that was a pretty big sign.

Lastly, just as he’d been leaving to meet Todd outside, the brunette had caught a glimpse of a flyer displayed by the door for a community play, set to be performed the 15th and 16th of the new year.

“That’s just a few days before my birthday, you know. But it’s sort of a strange time to have a play, isn’t it?” The younger boy asked, crumpling up his empty brown bag. “Just, the middle of January. Sort of a strange time.”

Todd shrugged his shoulders with his hands over his pleasantly full stomach. “Dunno, that’s about when everyone will be going back to school. Maybe, maybe it’s just an end-of-winter-break thing.” He nudged his arm against the taller boy’s. “That’s about when they’ll be expecting us to leave, too.”

Neil made a noncommittal sound, as if he couldn’t be bothered with the fact - or rather, _problem_ \- that they would be expected to go back to Harvard in a few weeks. 

Instead, he answered: “Think we can go see it? It’s supposed to be The Hunchback of Notre-Dame. You’ve been to Paris, you’d like that.”

The older boy nodded in response, before adding with a teasing smile, “Shame you can’t play the lead in that.”

“Eh, no doubt they’ve had a full cast for a while. Anyway I’m not sure I have the figure or the strength for it.”

Neil’s voice grew soft and his eyes cast down. Todd cursed himself for bringing up acting - or being unable to. Obviously that was still a fairly touchy subject. He knew he needed to lighten the mood soon or else he’d be cursing himself for making Neil cry, too.

Suddenly struck with a mischievous impulse, Todd chuckled lightly while he slid a hand as inconspicuously as possible to the layer of snow still lining the bench’s armrest. Once he’d collected as much of it as he could in one hand, he shot his arm out and dumped the ball down the back of Neil’s coat. Before the boy could even shout Todd was dashing off of the seat.

And shout Neil did, his voice raising several octaves at the bitter chill. 

“Shit, shit! _Todd_!” He leapt from the bench as well as he wildly tried to shake the ice from his back. “You’re the _worst!_ ”

Todd, several feet away, nearly collapsed into the snow with the force of his laughter. Not only was it humorous to get payback for Neil doing the same to him that first morning they’d run away, but it felt completely liberating to laugh so deeply. He had to clench his eyes shut against the rush of joyful tears.

However as he pried open his wet eyes, he was met with the younger boy gathering up a mass amount of snow at his feet. Immediately his giggles weakened and he held his hands out placatingly while he took a step back. “W-wait, Neil, hey wait, wait-”

“You started it!” Neil whooped as he launched the huge heap of snow towards the blond’s torso. 

Luckily, in his haste to lunge away, the older boy slipped fully onto the ground. The ball whizzed over his head and burst against a nearby tree. For a tense, frozen moment, the boys merely stared at each other with amused smiles as they waited for the other to make the next move.

Deciding not to be the victim of the next meteor-sized snowball that Neil formed, Todd stumbled to his feet and bolted away as quickly as his sliding sneakers would allow. He heard his companion yell behind him and give in to the chase. The boys’ gleeful shouts echoed off of the increasingly dense trees as they raced to the back, unexplored area of the park.

Across the small thicket, Todd spotted a snow covered glass building by a road he hadn’t seen before; when another snowball landed on the back of his heels he pushed himself harder through the trees towards the strange enclosure. Within a few seconds he reached the door. In his giggling haste he struggled with the knob, and just as he burst inside Neil caught up to him. The dark eyed boy spun him around, playfully pushing his back against the door and closing it with the movement.

The boys snickered and panted from exertion with their eyes locked on one another. Before long the laughter died down and Neil began to lean in, the tension pulling them together like something inevitable, the distance between their lips closing with each heavy breath-

For some reason unbeknownst to him - perhaps due to the fear that someone might be there, about to witness something that would really be best kept hidden in their bedroom - Todd chose that moment to peek at the room around them. However, it wasn’t a person that made him gasp and squirm from Neil’s arms to get a better look at the interior.

“ _Woah_ ,” he breathed out, awe prevalent in his voice.

The taller boy whined a bit, nudging his nose against Todd’s cheek until he, too, caught sight of the rest of the room. “Oh… woah,” he echoed.

The entire enclosure was spring epitomized. The glass walls were crawling with ivies of various kinds. Three long tables stretched the length of the room, pressed to each side of the walls and one down the middle; all coated in flowers, fruit and vegetables plants, and a variety of shrubs and succulents. Now that he was paying attention he could feel that the air was somehow warm and incredibly fresh albeit rather muggy.

“What is this place?” Todd asked distractedly. He had never seen so many plants, much less in the dead of winter. How was this possible?

“I think it’s a greenhouse,” Neil replied as they wandered slowly down the closest row.

Todd stopped to run a finger along a shiny, heart-shaped leaf. “This is a greenhouse? But I, I thought those were huge, and mostly used for specific plants.”

After a slow shrug, Neil came to rest his chin against the shorter boy’s shoulder. “I guess this is just a small, really diverse one.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Todd whispered. 

If he thought simply stepping outside had cleared his mind that morning, it had nothing on the effect of the abundance of nature surrounding him now. Not only had he never seen anything like this, he’d never felt quite so balanced either. 

It was as if he was safe here, that he wasn’t being watched. He’d felt so long that there was some force - his parents, most likely - waiting to jump down and deliver justice upon him should he make any mistakes. Yet here, with greenery as his company and his shield, the weight somehow all went away.

Neil flashed him a grin before walking deeper into the room. He heard the taller boy whistle, impressed, under the canopy that two small apple trees in the back provided. The shorter took a few slow steps forward as well, trying to familiarize himself with each blooming thing even though he was sure he didn’t know half of their names.

So lost in his thoughts, he didn’t hear the woman enter the room until she cleared her throat and demanded firmly, “Excuse me, can I help you?”

Todd jumped away from the table as if he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar - not that he’d ever had a cookie jar to be caught with, but the result was the same.

The woman had short, curly auburn hair and her handsome yet stern face was covered in freckles. Todd waited for Neil to answer, but when there was nothing but silence from behind him and the woman opened her mouth as if to ask again, Todd rushed to respond.

“I-I-I’m sorry. We, we didn’t mean to t-trespass, I’m sorry. I just, um we-we just were looking at the plants, and wow, they’re incredible! But we can, we can go now.” He knew he was rambling, and God, could he shut up please? And where was Neil? He was the one who handled these stranger situations. “I’m sorry,” he blubbered again because he was a bumbling idiot.

The woman’s grey-ish eyes softened considerably and she soothed, “You’re not trespassing kid, this is a public store. Most folks just stick to the inside of the feed shop, huh?”

She gestured out the window to a small white building he hadn’t seen before, nestled just beside the glass room they’d stumbled on.

Neil, making Todd flinch in surprise from his sudden proximity, finally spoke up. “Oh, we’re sorry ma’am, we didn’t know. We’re new in town, staying with Ms. Jude Lynde.”

At the mention of the name, the woman dropped her strong arms from crossed over her chest to tucked casually in the pockets of her overalls. She breathed out an _‘ahh’_ with something of an awkwardly charming smile.

“Ms. Jude, huh? She’s got a couple of new lost boys?” At the pair’s nods, she held out a hand to shake. “Well, I’m Mable Eliot. And don’t- don’t call me ma’am or Ms. Eliot. Around here I’m just Mable.”

She had to be close to Keating’s age: not particularly young but certainly not old. As Todd shook her hand - which had a notably strong grip, none of the dainty limp-fish style of most of the women he knew - he struggled to keep the “ma’am” from slipping out when saying it was nice to meet her.

Mable kindly ushered them towards the door, assumably to continue talking in the feed shop where she could watch over her store. As they were leaving, Todd paused to spare one last, lingering look at the plants inside. The woman must have caught it, and gave him a considering look.

“You know anything about botany?”

He turned to meet her gaze and shook his head. “No, uh, no I don’t.” Of course he knew plants existed, but in a way he hadn’t really realized _plants existed_ before he and Neil had stumbled inside.

She narrowed her eyes as if in contemplation for a moment, until she finally shrugged and spoke again. “Wanna learn?”

The blond merely blinked at her uncomprehendingly. Of course he’d like to learn, but it’s not like he really had time, especially since he still needed to find a job.

At his lack of response Neil nudged his side, whispering his name exasperatedly.

_Oh_. She was offering him a job! In the greenhouse!

“Oh!” He said aloud, switching his eyes between the younger boy and the woman. They both smiled at him kindly as he collected himself enough to pour out, “Y-yes! Yes. I, um, I would really like that.”

Two chuckles sounded on either side of him while he blushed at his own nitwittedness.

“Well, I’m closed Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so there’s really no sense in you just coming in tomorrow.” Mable ticked off the days on her fingers. “How about you start the 26th, huh?”

“That- that’s perfect. Thank you.” He shook her hand again, an excited smile across his face. He could hardly believe what had started as quite a poor day was turning out like this. “Thank you.”

The woman returned his smile until Neil quietly interjected that he’d need to get back to work soon. With that they all wished each other happy holidays and the boys made their way back towards the park and the bakery on the other side.

Neil linked their fingers together as they walked through the trees much more reasonably paced than last time they’d come through. The blond swung their hands happily in between them, and ignored his companion when he teasingly laughed at him for it.

Even though he knew they’d need to let go soon and he’d have to return to earth, he felt his own delight radiating out of him - enough to compete with the sunlight still bouncing over their pink cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my purposes, Neil’s 18th birthday is January 18th. 
> 
> Greenhouses (as we know them) weren’t popularized until the 1960s so I hope it’s not too confusing that they weren’t aware that small, personal greenhouses exist.
> 
> I love Todd with plants, he’s such a plant Dad. As always, let me know what you think!


End file.
